Worthy of the Crown
by Slavok
Summary: The World of Twelve is not ready for the Eliatrope people, and Yugo is not ready to be their king. But one way or another, Yugo is going to bring them back, because the world may need them. Contains spoilers and begins after the end of the second season.
1. To Be a King

Wakfu

Worthy of the Crown

Chapter One

To Be A King

a/n This takes place after season two. If you haven't watched it that far, go do that, because there will be spoilers, and it is really worth seeing.

The many peoples of the World of Twelve plowed their fields, hunted their forests, and built their cities on solid rock, barely conscious of the fact that their world was not one of land, but of water, a few isolated peaks piercing through the endless sea. The world as a whole was like that as well, an island soaring through the infinite, almost empty, space.

It wasn't always like that. Once, before the Ogrest flooded the world with his sorrow, the world was a drier, gentler place where the followers of the Twelve Gods, from the fierce Sacrier to the avaricious Enutrof, blamed themselves for their misfortune and not a legendary calamity. Back then, they could walk or ride from any major city to any other. These days, they had to sail across the blue, or, in Yugo's case, zaap.

Yugo the Eliatrope fell upwards and downwards, but always forwards. He drew small, blue portals, the signature ability of his race, and threw them into his path, redirecting his momentum, but never breaking it. His brother, Adamai, the white dragon, flew beside him.

"Look, Yugo, land!" Adamai called. "I can't believe that you managed to zaap the whole way."

"I can't believe that you wouldn't—let me ride on your back," Yugo replied, his words interrupted by his own portals.

"It's good exercise," Adamai replied lightly, defying gravity with supernatural ease. He could shapeshift into many different forms, many of which could fly and some that didn't even need wings. "You'll build up endurance this way."

Yugo didn't respond, and instead focused on the shoreline which stood as the border as his second favorite place in the whole world. Adamai had a point, as usual. Yugo was the only Eliatrope in the world and he had a destiny that he would not hide from. No one, not even Yugo himself, knew what he was capable of, and a time when no one was actively trying to kill him was as good a time as any to test his limits. If that meant making a simple journey nearly impossible, then so be it.

Yugo reached the shoreline more quickly than any ship or eagle and collapsed on the beach in exhaustion. "Yeah!" he said triumphantly, punching the air. "Made it!"

Adamai hovered some thirty feet above the ground before he joined his brother. A single massive tree stood in the middle of the Sadida Kingdom, towering over the forest like any other tree towers over a field of grass. The Tree of LIfe had nearly been destroyed along with the entire Sadida people by a Xelor with an artifact of the Eliatrope people. Adamai smiled wryly. The World of Twelve would soon have more than a few Eliatrope relics to deal with. He dropped to the ground next to Yugo.

"I never should have doubted you," he said.

"I wouldn't have minded," Yugo replied. "How long did it take us?"

"Forever," he replied with an exasperated sigh. "It would have taken Phaeris what, half an hour?

"In his sleep," Yugo laughed. "We still have a ways to go before we catch up to him."

"Well I'm ready whenever you are, bro."

"You're right, we can't stop now. We're almost there!" Yugo stood up more quickly than he should have and the blood rushed from his head. Zaapping the entire way across the sea left his knees feeling weak and he wasn't used to using that much Wakfu out of a fight.

Adamai sighed and transformed into a scaraleaf. "Just get on my back and I'll carry you the rest of the way." Almost was a relative term, and while they were close enough to see the Tree of Life, they were also close enough to see the surrounding mountains.  
Yugo looked up. "Really?"

"Sure," he said. "Besides, you're an Eliatrope. People expect you to arrive on the back of a dragon. Though I reserve the right to make fun of your weight."

Yugo jumped through a portal and dropped onto his back. "Deal."

WWW

In all their travels, the Brotherhood of the Tofu never turned away from someone who needed help. Bakers, merchants, small towns, no one was too small to go unnoticed or two great to be ignored. Often those they saved had nothing to offer more than their gratitude, but once the Brotherhood of the Tofu had managed to save an entire kingdom, and the Sadida had never forgotten them.

"Look! Up there!"

"Is that Yugo?"

"With that hat? Definitely!"

Yugo waved to nearby Sadida children, gripping onto one of Adamai's horns as his brother flew upside down. They didn't have time to stop and chat with locals, though. There was someone they wanted to see.

They flew through a palace window and Yugo jumped off Adamai's back, landing in a boardroom. Prince Armand and King Oakheart Sheran Sharm poured over a map in the middle of the room, and neither showed much surprise at seeing the boy and his dragon.

"You're back, Yugo," Armand noted calmly. "I thought things were a bit too quiet. Adamai, always a pleasure."

Az flew out of Yugo's pocket and started flying around. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" Yugo asked.

The king sighed and relaxed into a majestic armchair. "I needed a break anyway." He turned to his son. "We never had much of a navy anyway, and if they prove hostile, we'll deal with them on land."

"Then that's that, then," Armand said. He turned to Yugo. "You're here to see Amalia, I take it."

"Yeah, is she here?"

"I certainly hope so," he said. "I'll tell her you've come."

Armand walked out of the room, his posture uncharacteristically slumped. Yugo frowned. Armand had always seemed proud and confident, but now he just seemed tired. "Is everything alright, your Highness?"

"Yes, yes," the king assured him. "Diplomacy and politics wear one down is all. The only appeal of war is that it is more straightforward than tariffs and trade embargos. But a king can't take the simple road all the time, nor should he. But enough about that, Yugo. What brings you here? And how is Alibert doing? Well, I hope."

Yugo grinned. "Better than well! He knows how to make bread!"

King Sheran Sharm raised an eyebrow. "Oh. I assume he couldn't before?"

Yugo shook his head. "No, but then I ran into the greatest baker in Amakna, and when I got back home I passed on everything he taught me, and Papa Alibert hasn't burnt it since." He beamed with pride. "Which is great because Grougal does that for him now." Moving away from the Sadida Kingdom hadn't made the baby dragon any less of a handful, and it took none other than Phaeris the Powerful to keep him in line.

Yugo sat down into a chair that was too big for him. "Hey, what you said about being a king...do you think that Armand will make a good king?"

"Armand? Yes, I believe he will. He has much to learn, but he has much time to learn it." He smiled wryly. "I don't intend on dying soon."

Yugo smiled, but he didn't feel it. He had too many questions that he couldn't answer, some he wasn't sure had answers. "What makes a good king?" he asked softly. Adamai caught his eye, but didn't say anything.

The king shrugged his shoulders. "Well, the king has to be in charge of everything and everyone comes to him with their problems and expects him to solve them, so to be a good king, you have to be good at everything."

Yugo frowned. "Oh."

"But that isn't very helpful," King Oakheart continued, stroking his thick, green beard thoughtfully. "There was a council a few months ago while you were seeking Shinonome's Dofus. The leaders of the world came together, everyone from the Cra Matriarch to the Xelor Timelord. All of them were...effective rulers, though I wouldn't turn my back on some of them. It helps for a king to be intelligent, but the Iop ruler manages. Kings are usually strong, but in times of peace they seldom find the need for it. Most weaknesses can be covered by the support of those loyal to the king, but the one thing that can't be covered is the king's ability to understand who is trustworthy, and he must also understand when he needs help. He also needs to understand the needs of his people." He paused thoughtfully. "Yes. What a king needs most is an understanding heart. For that alone there is no substitute"

Yugo looked up. He had expected something more like courage or a keen mind. "Really?"

The king nodded. "But you can't always choose what you're good at, so you just do your best and hope it works out."

Yugo smiled. "If it means anything, I think you're a great king." The best Yugo had ever met by a long shot. In the end, that was why Qilby could never be the king the Eliatropes needed. Even after everything, people, lives, and entire worlds were insignificant.

King Oakheart laughed. "Well, my kingdom has survived me so far. The real test is to see if it can survive my heir."

The door opened and Amalia stepped in. "If this is about the carnivorous plants again..." She stopped when she saw Yugo. "Yugo! When did you get here?"

Yugo grinned widely. She hadn't changed a bit. "I just got here. I'm bringing the Brotherhood of the Tofu back together."

a/n I've been wanting to do a Wakfu fanfiction for ages. I'm not that thrilled with the first chapter, but you have to start somewhere, and I'd rather have it make sense than start in the middle of an action scene. I'll go into more detail about the background and what happened between now and the last episode in later chapters. Anyway, let me know what you think.


	2. Reunion

Wakfu

Worthy of the Crown

Chapter Two

Reunion

"Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry."  
― Terry Pratchett,

"What do you mean they're not here?"

"I mean they're not here," Amalia said flippantly. _I'm here,_ she thought with irritation. _Isn't that good enough? _

Yugo looked down. "I just figured that I'd find them here."

"Well, they left. They have their own lives, you know."

"Huh," Yugo said, sitting down. They were still in the official boardroom, not where Amalia would have preferred their reunion, and her dad had left. "Did they say where they went?"

"Ruel left when we wouldn't let him dig for treasure," she said. "He yelled something about ingratitude and how he was going to look for gold elsewhere. Eva and Pinpin went off on their own, and I haven't heard from them."

Yugo looked up with concern. "Isn't she your bodyguard?"

"And has been for the past eight years," she said with a nod. "She's earned some time off. A sabbatical or something. I'm kind of worried about why she hasn't written me yet. I mean, it's been two months already." She sighed. "I guess wherever they are, they're really busy. Anyway, how've you been?"

"Great! Papa Alibert is still taking care of Chibi, and Phaeris moved into a nearby cave in the mountains to look after Grougal. People have started calling my home 'The Dragon Inn,' and they're coming from all over the world to try to talk to him."

"Poor guy," Adamai muttered.

"And here's the good part," Yugo continued. "You know how the Zaap portals were made by the Eliatropes?"

"Yeah." She remembered Qilby mentioning it. Not that that made it true, but it did make sense.

"Well, now I can too," he said, grinning with pride.

Amalia blinked. "You did? Really? How'd you learn that?" The Zaap portals, permanent immovable, and as old as the world itself, were one of the few evidences that the Eliatropes ever existed. Even as limited as they were, often existing in obscure swamps or wastes, they made travel practical. Without them, Amalia wasn't sure if she ever would have left home, and she wouldn't even have heard of half the world beyond her kingdom's borders.

"I thought it would be really hard, but it's _not_," he said. "Actually I was planning on building one here."

Amalia considered the possibilities. New sets of Zaaps could change the routes of wandering heroes, trading caravans, everything. "Now this I have to see."

WWW

A large group of Sadidas gathered around one of the other Zaap portals within the borders of the Sadida Kingdom to watch. Adamai handed out orders constructing the basic arch of the portal.

"It has to be this tall and a perfect circle," the dragon said. "You'll want to make it out of wood, right?"

"Of course," Armand said. "Though, doesn't it seem a tad short?"

Adamai looked at him. "I think I know what I'm doing. The more complicated designs offer more flexibility, but for now, this is how we do it."

"Well, yes, of course, no one is questioning that, but this design is rather small compared to the others."

Adamai looked at the original Zaap, and the one he was making. His Zaap was at least a foot shorter than the other. "Huh. Well, it's too late now."

"Can't you just redesign it?"

Adamai shook his head. "It has to match its partner Zaap. If this one's bigger than its partner, then in the best case scenario it won't work at all."

"And in the worst?"

"You'll end up permanently shorter," Adamai said. "And dead."

"Ah," Armand said. "Carry on then."

"You already built this Zaap's partner?" Amalia asked. "Where?"

"Emelka," Yugo said. "We made the first one in my backyard before we came. I promised Papa Alibert this morning that I'd be home for dinner."

"Wait, you made it from Emelka to Sadida in a day?" Amalia asked, impressed. "When I made the trip with Eva, it took nearly a week."

Yugo grinned. "And it will never take me that long again!"

"Alright, that's good," Adamai said after the arch was finished. "Hey, bro, you want to do the next part?"

Yugo stretched. "Yeah, I got this." He pulled a blue feather out of his pocket. He closed his eyes and the feather began to glow. Yugo scrawled draconic runes into the wooden arch with an ill practiced hand. A few minutes later, he finished. "Hey, Adamai? Do you want to check this for me?"

_"Sooahh Z'apap ime oot tsken Ahklemeh neh tfel eeah tathz paz erthuh uhthz oot eem kate," _Adamai read. He looked at Yugo. "That's not how you spell _uhthz. _Who taught you to write?"

"You did," Yugo said.

"I did?" Adamai frowned. "Well, I did a pretty darn good job. Let me just fix this part...and this part right here, and I should probably rewrite this whole thing here, and...we're good to go."

"Now for the fun part?" Yugo asked hopefully.

"Now for the fun part," Adamai answered grinning.

"Alright, everyone back up," Yugo commanded. "If this works out, I'm told there will be a big flash of light and a small hole in the universe."

"_If _this works out?" Amalia repeated. "I thought you did this before. And told by whom?"

"Each Zaap comes in pairs," Yugo explained. "I haven't completed the first one until I"ve finished this one."

"And if it doesn't work out?" Amalia demanded.

"Then there may be a lot of dust," he said, and added under his breath, "And some of it will be us."

"What?"

"Ready?"

"What? No, no, call it off!"

"Ready!" Adamai answered.

The brothers stood on opposite sides of the Zaap, their palms out, nearly touching the invisible wall that they would soon form. Yugo's hands glowed blue, Adamai's a deep violet. Electricity sparked between them and reached out to the edges of the arch like a arachne's web. And then...

"Yugo!"

White light burned out of the portal as the fabric of space and time bent to the will of the draconic people. And then...nothing. Yugo found himself on his back twenty feet from where he started. He sat up, dazed. "You alive, bro?"

"I hope so," Adamai groaned. "Because if this is the afterlife I got gypped."

"What were you thinking?" Amalia demanded. "It's bad enough that you try to get yourself killed playing hero all the time trying to save the world, but to nearly die doing something so...so _Iopish_..."

"Iopish?" Adamai repeated. "What kind of Iops have _you _been hanging out with?"

"Is it working?" Yugo asked. A translucent curtain filled the Zaap, as reflective as a pool of water.

"I think so," Adamai said. "This is what was supposed to happen, right?"

"A pulse of energy, a flash of light, the runes have faded, but..." Yugo's eyes flashed blue as he switched to Wakfu vision. The draconic runes reappeared. "It checks out." He reached out to touch the portal with his finger, but King Oakheart stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Another thing a king must understand," he said, "Is when to delegate." He picked up his own veggie doll and tossed it through. He closed his eyes and stood silently for a moment. "Yes. I have not been to Emelka in some time and I do not recognize any landmarks, but it seems safe enough. Congratulations, you two."

Amalia stepped up to her father. "Dad, do you think I could spend the night at Alibert's inn?" she asked sweetly. "There are a few things that I wanted to ask…Phaeris about." The king studied her suspiciously. "I was planning on waiting until Eva came back, but if it's just a step away, you know, it's not like I really need a body guard, right?"

King Oakheart sighed. "Very well then."

"Great! Thanks! I'll go get my things." Amalia ran off, and most of the on looking Sadidas began going their separate ways.

"She's not planning on coming back tomorrow, is she, Yugo?" the king asked calmly.

Yugo hesitated. "No," he said. "I'm sorry, but..."

"There's no need to apologize. She has changed after she began travelling, and not at all for the worst. My only concern is that she is short a body guard." He met Yugo's eyes with a piercing stare. "Until Evangelyne returns, I am giving _you _that responsibility. Do you accept?"

Yugo nodded solemnly. "I won't let anything happen to her."

The king closed his eyes and smiled wryly. "That would not be feasible nor wise. All I ask is that you bring her back alive."

"I promise." He looked up a moment later as a thought occurred to him. "Hey, does this make me a knight?"

Amalia arrived touting her luggage. "Does what make you a knight?" She had changed out of her princess regalia into something more practical.

"Nothing," the king said. "And no, it doesn't. Be careful." He walked away, and Adamai, Amalia, and Yugo stepped through the portal and into another continent.

A short distance away stood Alibert's inn, the home that Yugo knew so well. "Cool! We're home!"

Adamai sniffed the air. "Not only that, we're in time for supper!"

Yugo and Adamai charged into their home, a large house with a few extra rooms that could be rented to travelers. It wouldn't be the nicest place the princess had ever stayed in, but she had stayed in much, much worse places during her travels, and it had a welcoming atmosphere that she couldn't quite place. Amalia took a backwards glance at the Zaap portal. The translucent sheen that filled it faded, and she was no longer a step away from home. She could toss in a Wakfu crystal to reactivate it, though, and that was all it would take.

"Hey, Amalia," Yugo called. "Are you coming?"

"Coming!" she said quickly.

The sun had long since set, and most of the guests had already gone to bed. The only ones left were a small group of Osamodas who bowed to Adamai respectfully before retiring. Alibert stood at the entrance to the kitchen, and his face lit up as soon as he saw them.

"Papa Alibert!" Yugo called, jumping into his father's arms.

"Yugo, my boy!" the broad-shouldered innkeeper replied, catching him and tossing him up into the air. "I didn't know you'd be back so soon!"

"After we connected the Zaaps, it was just a step away!" In a nearby cradle, the infant Chibi reached out his arms. Yugo picked him up and tossed him into the air and caught him like Alibert had just done to him. "What about you, Chibi? Did you miss me too?"

The baby made a gurgling noise that sounded like, "Gugubam!"

"Nope," Yugo said sadly, setting him back in his cradle. "You only missed Grougal." He turned to Alibert. "If his first word turns out to be Grougaloragran, he deserves a medal."

The broad shouldered innkeeper smiled and turned to Amalia. "And Princess Amalia! Forgive me if I am unaccustomed to entertaining royalty. I bet you're hungry. Let me make you some supper."

"I'll help too," Yugo offered. The two of them went into the kitchen.

Adamai sat down at one of the empty tables. "Aren't you going to help him?" Amalia asked.

Adamai snorted indignantly. "I'm a dragon. Cooking is beneath me."

"Yeah?" Yugo called back. "Well, eating your cooking is beneath me too."

Adamai rolled his eyes and threw a nearby eating knife at him. Yugo caught it in a portal and shot it back at him. Adamai caught it expertly by the handle and they both laughed.

"I swear," Amalia said. "If you two survive each other, it will be a miracle." The two brothers laughed again, and Amalia shook her head. "So what's this quest that we're going on? You two were kind of skimpy on the details."

"Well, do you remember the Council of Twelve that gathered to figure out what to do with the, uh, _issue _of the Eliatrope nation?" He spoke the last part bitterly.

Amalia nodded. She wasn't present at the meeting; she was helping Yugo find Shinonome's Dofus, but she heard about it.

"It was disappointing," Adamai said. "Half the council thought that we were a mass of starving refugees, coming to beg on their streets and eat all their food, and the other half thought that we were coming to take over the world."

"My dad wasn't like that," Amalia protested.

Adamai shook his head. "No, the Sadida people have been supportive, and the Osamodas always treat me with this weird reverence that I don't get."

"You figure into their religion," Amalia explained. "They believe that all life was created by the three dragons of Osamoda, and all dragons are sacred by extension." She couldn't remember how much time her tutors drilled her with useless facts about other cultures.

"Huh," Adamai said. "I wonder who they were. If it was before Orgonax...Balthazar? That seems like something he would do. And maybe Grougal?"

Yugo stepped out of the kitchen holding a plate in each hand and balancing a third one on his head. "Supper's ready!" Without warning, he threw all three plates at them and they landed neatly on the table. "Alright! Three for three!"

Amalia jumped back in shock and nearly fell out of her chair. "What was that about? You nearly spilled it all over me! If you're going to keep on throwing things all night, I can eat somewhere else."

Yugo jumped through a portal and feel into a chair next to her. "I'll be good," he promised. He looked at both of them. "So, what are we talking about?"

Amalia studied her plate. It was a thick, meaty stew that smelled inviting. "Your quest. Adamai was telling me where we were going."

"Right," Adamai continued. "Anyway, a lot of the leaders of the World of Twelve don't want the Eliatropes to return, and many of them are afraid of us. If the Eliatropes come back and they're surrounded by people who want to kill them, well..."

"It won't come to that," Yugo interrupted. "That's why we're going to go all over the world and convince the people in charge that they don't need to be afraid of us." He held out a spoonful of stew for Az to peck at.

"So, it's diplomacy, right?" Amalia said. She had met most of the rulers that they'd probably end up talking to.

"The first part," Yugo agreed. "We'll have to pick up Ruel, Tristepin, and Evangelyne too if we run into them."

Amalia wasn't sure how she felt about that. Ruel was too cheap for new clothes, decent hygiene, or anything that would make him come close to presentable, and Pinpin wouldn't be able to resist meeting the most powerful people in the world without getting into an Iop-brained brawl. "Is there a third part?"

Yugo nodded. "There are six dofus in the world. A dofus needs the wakfu of both the Eliatrope and the dragon to hatch, and of the six, five are at least partially hatched. There's mine and Adamai's, Grougal and Chibi's, Phaeris's, Balthazar's, and Shinonome's. That leaves Nora's and Efrim's Dofus. I don't know where their Dofus is, but, well, they've been gathered before."

"Yeah, by _the Ogrest_," Amalia said. "What, are you planning on climbing up Mount Zinit and asking him where he'd last seen it?"

"Of course not! Bit if it's been done before, it can be done again." Yugo took a bite of his stew. "Besides, I'm sure the Ogrest isn't as bad as everyone says."

Amalia winced. "All the same, that's something we should save for last." She finished off her stew. It was pretty good. "Do you really think it will work?"

"I hope so. We'll have to bargain with some of them, but just with Zaaps alone, we could make it so you could walk from Bonta to Brakmar in a few minutes! Once people realize how much we can help, of course they'll accept us."

Amalia shook her head. "I know enough about the major leaders to know that they won't appreciate you bringing them closer together. What can shorten the distance for merchants and travelers can spread epidemics, invading armies, spies..."

"Tall fences make good neighbors?" Adamai suggested.

"Right."

Yugo's face fell, but only for a moment. "Then we'll just have to save the world a few more times. We don't need every major group to support us. As long as there aren't enough people opposing us to cause problems, then we'll be fine."

Amalia stood up. "I suppose if we knew how it would turn out, it wouldn't be an adventure, would it? I take it we leave in the morning?"

"Yep."

"Great. Well, good night."

"Good night."

WWW

After they had cleaned up their mess and washed their dishes, Yugo and Adamai went to bed too. "So, are you planning on telling anyone?"

There was only one thing he could be talking about. Yugo shook his head. "It's not really something anyone needs to know."

Adamai closed his eyes and relaxed into his bed. It was more nest shaped than the sort of things humans slept in. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, you know. Being a king."

Yugo winced. Adamai had a way of asking the questions Yugo would rather have avoided. "I know," he said. "It's just that..." _Ten thousand pairs of eyes looking to their savior, ten thousand furious angels flying to avenge their fathers and their mothers, an ancient people waiting to be freed._"I'm not really a king. Not yet anyway."

"So you're going to wait until you have a kingdom?" Adamai surmised. "Alright, but remember, a king is not just a ruler. He's a symbol. Until you step forward, the world will still think that Qilby is our king."

"Yeah," Yugo said before falling asleep. "I know."

WWW

a/n So that's that. I'm not really sure how Zaaps work in the show as compared to the game, but I'm following the idea that they are built in pairs like normal portals. I figure that if any Zaap could take you to any other Zaap like in the game, they'd spend a lot less of the show traveling. Also there's the Sadlygrove/Tristepin conflict, and I'm going with Tristepin because Sadlygrove shortens to Grovey, which sounds too much like groovy, which would bother me indefinitely. You can translate the draconic language if you want to. I heard that they just had someone talk normally, then played it backwards, so I did that in English, so it's backwards phonetically, but not by spelling. If you say "I" slowly enough it comes out something like ah-eh-ee, so backwards it would be approximately eeah. I'm sure you can work out the rest from that.


	3. Time Bound

Wakfu

Worthy of the Crown

Chapter Three

Time Bound

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."  
― Mark Twain

Even in their youth, dragons were a force to be reckoned with. As an adult, few could stand before Phaeris the Powerful without falling to their knees. His terrible majesty was unmatched even by his own people. And yet, when Yugo saw him, he felt no fear, only a sense of brotherhood. He would never—could never be afraid of dragons.

"Phaeris wishes you good fortune on your quest," the dragon said. "How our people return to this world will determine how this world will determine our people."

"I still wish you could come with us, though," Yugo said. They were at the mouth of the cave that Phaeris had chosen to live in. "But I guess that would be too intimidating."

The great dragon nodded, an odd gesture from someone with a neck several feet long. "What I have taught you, and what you have learned from Balthazar, will be enough."

"I'll miss you," Adamai said. "Having you around, it was almost like living with Grougal again." Grougal, who had been chasing Az around mercilessly to learn to hunt, took that moment to crash into Adamai's head. "Ow! I mean, you know, when he wasn't so small." He grabbed Grougal and tossed him over his shoulder with the nonchalance that could only be done safely with infants that could fly and were nearly indestructible. "I can do the shield spell now, and by the time we get back, it will be impenetrable."

"I still need to work on my sword," Yugo said. When Phaeris had unlocked his powers through the Dragon Blessing, he could make a sword out of Wakfu as strong as Qilby's scythe. "Without your help, I can still make a sword, but it's just the image of a sword and it can't cut anything. It's not really useful unless I want to fake my death." He focused and conjured a glowing, blue sword in demonstration and plunged it into his chest, dying theatrically. Amalia jumped and Adamai laughed, but Phaeris didn't even blink.

"Anyway, before we go, there was a question that a few Osamoda pilgrims wanted us to ask you," Yugo said, getting up. "Now what was it..." He fished about in his pockets until he pulled out a scrap of paper. "Here it is! Uh, they want to know what happens when an unstoppable force meets and immovable object."

WWW

"You know, I think that those Osamodas would have believed anything if we told them it was from Phaeris," Adamai said afterwards.

Yugo rolled his eyes. "Come on, Adamai. We both know that you wouldn't lie to them like that. It would defile your honor as a dragon."

"I don't know," Adamai replied. "When faced with that much reverence, it's hard not to take advantage of it."

"Who's Balthazar?" Amalia asked suddenly.

Yugo looked up. "Didn't I tell you about him? He's the dragon watching over the Eliatrope children on Emrub. I met him during my fight with..."

_Qilby_, Amalia finished mentally. Yugo didn't gloat about battles he won, and he was more solemn about the battle at the Crimson Claws than most. Amalia remembered seeing him afterwards, his clothes torn to shreds, his body covered in bruises. He had charged into a warzone while she waited in a fancy ship, and all he said afterwards, was that it was over.

"So, where are we heading first?" Amalia asked, changing the subject.

"Good question." Yugo pulled out his map. "Hey, Grufon! Where's the closest major city?"

"Am I addressing my guardian?" the minor ShuShu replied sarcastically. "Or one of his many friends he's always lending me out to?"

"I..." Yugo started. "You're right, Grufon. I haven't been a good guardian. I should just give up now and make sure you end up in a good home." He turned to Adamai. "Hey, bro, do you think you have what it takes?"

"If you touch me with that thing I will _light it on fire!_"

"Okay, okay!" Grufon squealed. "Including Zaap portals, that would be, uh, the Sadida Kingdom."

Amalia rolled her eyes. "Wow, that's amazing. Really, do we need a magic evil map for this? What's the next one?"

"The next? Cra."

"The Cra Kingdom?" Yugo said. "Cool! Is that where Evangelyne is from?"

"She was born there," Amalia said, "but Cra and Sadida are so close, they're practically the same kingdom. In fact, there's probably no reason to go there at all. If the Sadida Kingdom supports you, then the Cra Kingdom will too."

"Huh. Well, we'll have to stop by on the way back. Which city is the next closest, Grufon?"

"Sram."

"Sram?" Amalia made a face. "The city of twenty thousand assassins?"

"That sounds dangerous."

Amalia nodded. "We should hold off on that one too."

"The next closest is Brakmar," the map said.

"Yeah! We haven't been to Brakmar in a while. I wonder if Kriss is still there."

Adamai scrowled. "I met their prince. I can't say I liked him much. He had some ridiculous story about you starting a rebellion there."

Yugo and Amalia looked at each other. "Rebellion?" Yugo said. "That seems like of harsh."

"And besides, it wasn't Yugo's fault," Amalia protested. "It was that brute Mmmmm...mm...org...whatever his name was."

"Wait, what happened?" Adamai asked.

"We were playing Boufbowl," Yugo explained. "And things got a little out of hand, and then the city got wrecked. But we _won_. And we _didn't_get executed."

"Wait, _what_?"

"Boufbowl's a violent, violent sport," Amalia explained. "But you have a point. Maybe we should stay away from Brakmar until they're done...rebuilding."

"So next on the list is..."

"Xelor."

"Xelor," Yugo said. "I feel good about Xelor. I mean, what can they do that we haven't faced already?"

"I always thought those guys were creepy," Amalia said, "but we have to start somewhere."

"Great," Yugo said. "How do we get there?"

The map scowled. "Take the road north until you reach the Zaap, go east until you get to the next Zaap, then go west, and you'll be there in four days."

"Four days? That's a piece of cake! Let's get going!" Yugo put the map away and they started off at a brisk walk.

"You know, this is going to be the first time we've gone on an adventure with only half our members," Amalia noted after a few minutes.

"I know," Yugo said. "I miss them too."

"Actually, I kind of like being able to breathe without smelling old person," Amalia said. "But we did have good teamwork. We'll have to redistribute our duties to cover for them not being here."

"We can't do that!" Yugo protested. "They're our friends! They're irreplaceable!"

"Yes, _they_are, but what they do isn't," Amalia pointed out. "I mean, Eva has great aim with a bow, but you're not bad with your Wakfu beams. I'll manage the kamas. I'm the only one who has any, anyway, and Ruel's so cheap we might as well have been living in a dumpster. And Adamai, you're as strong as Pinpin, right?"

Adamai snorted indignantly. "_As_strong? Tristepin isn't weak, for a human, but he's still only human."

"Great," Amalia said. "In that case, you get his job as meat shield. And you can have Eva's job of being no fun at all."

"Hey!"

"You can do this, Adamai!" Yugo said encouragingly. "I believe in you!"

"What? But...fine," Adamai said. "Let's just keep going. We're making good time."

WWW

A week later, after saving a small town from rampaging prespic ghosts and finding an old lady's lost bow meow, they arrived in Xelor. It was rusty and covered in soot. Most of the buildings were wide, flat semicircles, and the Time Lord's tower, a square building with a giant clock face, pierced the grey sky at the center of the city.

Yugo had naively expected the city to be full of Xelors calmly defying gravity by floating in the air and teleporting wherever they wanted. There were some who did that, but most just walked. The people had every square inch of their skin covered in bandages and mummy wraps, and the Xelor women had loose strips of cloth trailing from their heads to imitate hair. They also wore metal masks and armor painted in bright colors.

A few Xelors on the streets stopped and stared at them as they passed. Xelors covered every inch of themselves and Amalia, by Sadida custom, did the opposite, and Adamai, even in his human form, was short a few fingers and toes. If anyone thought that Yugo looked odd, he couldn't tell. Xelor expressions were hard to read.

They would have time for sightseeing later, though. They went straight to the giant clock tower where the Time Lord resided. As soon as they entered, the sounds of ticks and tocks surrounded them. They approached a desk where a Xelor woman sat.

"I am Princess Amalia Sheran Sharm, princess of Sadida and daughter of King Oakheart Sheran Sharm," Amalia said formally to the secretary. "And these are Yugo the Eliatrope and Adamai the dragon. We've come seeking an audience with the Time Lord." Adamai turned back into a dragon in demonstration.

"Understood," the Xelor said calmly. "There is an available fifteen minute block from four fifteen to four thirty."

Amalia looked at Yugo. "What if we need more than fifteen minutes?" she asked.

"Then those fifteen minutes will last _longer,_" the secretary said, as though it were obvious.

"Uh, I did say that I was a princess, right?"

The secretary nodded.

"And that doesn't...no?" Amalia sighed. "Oh well. So, four fifteen? What time is it now?"

The Xelor gave her a flat look through an already expressionless mask and pointed to a wall that was covered in clocks. "Oh."

WWW

"On the bright side," Yugo said after they left, "we have a chance to see the city. So who's hungry?"

They stopped at a local restaurant for lunch. The food was more solid than what Yugo expected and there was a lot of gravy in everything, but he was more interested in how Xelor's could eat with their faces covered. He tried to watch them without seeming rude, but by the time they were done eating, he still had no clue.

"Teleportation?" Adamai suggested. "If they can teleport, maybe they teleport their food directly into their stomachs."

"But if they did that, then all their food would be tasteless," Yugo pointed out.

"That doesn't exactly contradict the evidence," Amalia muttered, poking a biscuit with her fork.

They visited a library next. Half of the books were biographies about dead people, and the other half about the history of the World of Twelve and its various kingdoms. They didn't have much time to peruse the collections, so they moved on.

The final stop was a Xelor temple. It was a large dodecahedron with a large, brass pendulum on each of the twelve sides, swinging in perfect unison so they wouldn't hit each other. The trio had to time it perfectly so they could go through the door without being cut in half by one of them. When they entered, they saw a statue of a Xelor with a raised hammer, poised to strike a sphere on a pedestal.

"That's weird," Yugo said softly as they approached the center. "I thought that they would have something more...timey in the middle. Why do they have a statue of a Xelor with a hammer?"

"That is not _a_ Xelor," said a severe voice behind them. "That is _the_Xelor." It was a man in immaculate white wrappings instead of the standard, worn grey, and he wore a black cloak over them. His feet didn't touch the ground. His glowing eye holes studied them. "You have come a long way from home."

Adamai glared at him suspiciously, so Yugo spoke up. "Yes, we have. We came here to speak with your king—"

"Time Lord," Amalia corrected.

"Time Lord," Yugo said. "And while we were waiting, we decided to look around. Are you in charge of this place?"

"Yes. I am Zdenek, reigning priest templar of the temple of Xelor." His voice was still severe, but Yugo was beginning to think that that was just his natural way of talking. "If you have any questions, you may ask them, but you will not—" He teleported to the other side of them. "—touch anything."

"I have a question," Yugo said. "If that is a statue of your god, Xelor, what is he doing?"

"Making time," Zdenek said. "In the time before time, Xelor stuck the world with his hammer. The sound of the strike pleased the god, so he struck it again and again in a steady rhythm. The space between the hammer strikes was the first measurement of time, and thus, the first clock in the World of Twelve was the world itself."

"Wow," Yugo said reverently.

"Oh, come on, Yugo," Amalia said. "If that were true, there'd be a giant hammer smashing into the world every second, and no one would be able to live here."

The priest templar's eyes narrowed at her. "It's true in metaphor," he insisted. "The oldest recorded measurement of time is the rising and setting of the sun, is it not? And if the world did not spin, would the sun rise? It would take a massive, even divine power, to make the world turn, child of the forest."

"Child?" she said indignantly. She shook her head. "Well, I've see all I want to see. I'll be waiting outside. I'll be sure not to get hit by the giant pendulum on my way out." She turned and left.

Yugo smiled apologetically. "We've been traveling a lot. So, if Xelors can manipulate time, why are there so many clocks? Wouldn't the time dilations through them off?"

"Clocks, sandglasses, sundials, those are tools used to measure time," Zdenek explained. "It would be unwise to depend on powers one does not understand."

"Does anything exist outside of time?" Adamai asked. Yugo looked at him and knew what he meant. _Emrub, a world where time does not exist._

"Of course," the Xelor said without hesitation to their surprise. "All life is at once within time and outside of time."

"What?"

"There is a powerful spell," the Xelor explained, "that can stop the ticking of the divine clock. The caster can move about at will, but everything else is frozen in place. However, it is possible for those aware of the change to break free of the spell and join the caster in the halted world." Yugo had been caught in a spell like that three times, and both he and Adamai had managed to break free once. "It would not be possible to be aware of anything in that state," Zdenek continued, "if we were entirely within time."

"Yes, but that's just being partially out of time," Adamai said. "Could you be entirely outside of time?"

Zdenek hesitated. "Theoretically," he admitted. "But not within the boundaries of reality. Reality is defined by time and space. Beyond reality, there could be time outside of space, a dimension that some scholars believe that gods dwell, and there could be, like you say, space outside of time."

Adamai might have had a head for theoretical physics, but Yugo just felt lost. Still, it helped that Yugo had been in several of the situations Adenek mentioned. They had no more questions for the priest templar, so they left, thanking him for his time.

WWW

"There are a few things you should know about the Time Lord," Amalia said returned to the clock tower. "When you talk to him, you call him 'your lordship' instead of 'your highness' or 'majesty.' The Time Lord has absolute authority like a king, but the title is not hereditary. I'm not sure how succession works, but there is no such thing as a Xelor prince or princess, so my status as a Sadida princess is about the same as an ambassador, hopefully." She glanced at her friends. "I have no idea what status dragons have, and I don't think that Eliatropes have any at all."

"Yeah, it would be so much easier if Yugo were the Eliatrope king now," Adamai said. "Then we could talk to this guy on equal terms." Yugo glared at him when Amalia wasn't looking.

"I've never met him personally, but I have heard about him a lot," Amalia continued. "He's not vain, so don't try to flatter him, but he is proud, so do _not_insult him. The core virtues of the Xelor are patience and self-control. Don't lose your temper or get emotional and be brief. If you're not sure about protocol, follow my lead."

They entered the tower, and for the second time that day, they were surrounded by the sound of clocks. The secretary motioned them towards the elevator. "Top floor," she said.

"Is there anything else?" Yugo asked as they were going upward.

Amalia hesitated. "I'm not sure if I should tell you this. It's probably just a rumor, but...you know how the Xelor don't have princes? Well, there's a story that the current Time Lord was interested in continuing his reign through his son, but because he couldn't do that by the monarchal method, he consumed his son's timeline to extend his own life."

"He what?" Yugo gasped. "He _ate_his own son?"

"I'm not sure how it works, and it was just a rumor," Amalia said. "You know what? Just forget it. I shouldn't have said anything."

The elevator stopped and opened. On the far end of the throne room, the Time Lord, sitting in midair, waited for them.

WWW

a/n I'm calling the leader of the Xelors the Time Lord just because it sounds cool, and I am in no way, shape, or form making a reference to Doctor Who or the gods that the Days worshiped in The Runelords, although I heartily recommend both.


	4. Violet

Wakfu

Worthy of the Crown

Chapter Four

Violet

"Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it."  
Mark Twain

The throne room had no throne, for the Time Lord needed none. He sat with his legs crossed, hovering in midair, tendrils of his cloak nearly touching the floor, but not quite. His cloak was black and hooded, but open down to the waist. His face and chest were enveloped in shadow, and the holes for his eyes and on his chest were the only light in the room. The room had a circular design on the floor numbered from one to twelve.

"Your lordship," Amalia began, kneeling. Watching her, Yugo did the same, but Adamai didn't budge. "I am Princess Amalia Sheran Sharm, and these are..."

"I know who you are," the Time Lord interrupted. His voice sounded like rust. "And of course I recognize the _dragon._ What I don't know is why you are here."

"We're here to know where you stand on the return of the Eliatrope people," Yugo said.

"Oh? Will this be determined by a vote? How democratic."

Yugo shook his head. "No, it's like..." What was it like? "An alliance! The Eliatrope nation is returning, and I want to make sure that we're surrounded by friends instead of enemies."

"An alliance? With a nation that does not exist at this time. Presumptuous, child. At what price?"

"None," Yugo said. "Of course, we'll accept any help you can give us, but we'd settle for neutrality."

"And for how long?" the Time Lord asked. "Everything withers with time, even..." He eyed Adamai. "Even the world of the draconic people."

Furious, Adamai inhaled deeply and Yugo was worried that he'd start breathing fire. "You have never met a dragon who has broken his word," he said instead through gritted teeth. "No one ever has."

"I know little of Eliatropes, only that they are close to dragons." The Time Lord teleported from twelve o'clock to three on the floor design. "If I had the choice to invite tens of thousands of dragons into the World of Twelve, I wouldn't."

"Is there nothing we can do to change your mind?" Yugo said sadly. "Despite what anyone says, this _is _my world, and I wouldn't do anything to threaten it. Not even for my own people."

"Would your people's return threaten it? The Eliatropes may be only children now, but when they grow up, could your people conquer this world?"

"They won't," Yugo insisted.

"Could they?"

Yugo bit his lip. "Well, yes," he admitted. "But just because you _can_ burn your house down doesn't mean you will."

"But with a house as flammable as mine, I would not invite a dragon to share it with me. Or their kin. It seems that we have nothing to discuss." He teleported to his original position at twelve o'clock. "Unless you could provide insurance against the power of your people. But I suppose that the Eliacube isn't an option."

"No," Yugo said firmly. "Never."

"Pity." He glanced at Amalia. "It is fortunate that the Sadida are _incorruptibly trustworthy_ enough to guard such an artifact."

"The Eliacube isn't in the Sadida Kingdom anymore," Yugo said.

"Oh?" He sounded surprised for the first time. "And where is it?"

Yugo paused, picking his words carefully. "The Eliacube is outside of time."

The Time Lord fell silent, so Amalia spoke up. "We can offer you some of the Xelor Nox's inventions, though." Yugo looked at her in surprise. "Most of what he had was destroyed when he tried to consume the Tree of Life, but some of it, including the most powerful of his inventions, a mechanical construct called Razortime, requires only a source of power."

Yugo wasn't sure if Amalia could promise that, but now was not the time to question. "But without that source," the Time Lord said, "it is merely a broken clock. And yet, the clockmaker interests me. Desolations that could fill the Ogrest's shadow, a tinkerer of impossible things, a mocker of reality and gods, he fulfilled all the virtues of the Xelor in all their horror. And then he was defeated by..." Both of his glowing eye sockets turned to Yugo and flared. "By what? What happened in the clockwork fortress?"

"I...what?" Yugo didn't like thinking about the day that ended in ruin and graves, and the incessant, perpetual _ticking_ in the background didn't help. "There was a war going on. Adamai and I found a way into his fortress, and we took it."

"And you slew a dragon slayer?" he supplied skeptically.

"I..." Why all the questions? Didn't the Time Lord already say that they had nothing left to discuss? But...they were still talking, so they weren't done. "Adamai held him off for a while, and I managed to reach the Eliacube. I didn't know how to use it, and I burnt my hands pretty bad, but I managed to...open it up? I don't understand a lot of what happened, but suddenly we were somewhere else. I remember that he was furious about me draining the cube, and then..."

_Power without measure steaming off of him, faster than the speed of time, strength without limit and rage beyond mercy. _

_"You shouldn't have killed my friend."_

"Then he got behind me and I blacked out," Yugo continued, skipping ahead. "When I woke up, everything was going in reverse, and that ended before our fight with him even began, and all of his energy was drained."

"Fascinating," the Time Lord whispered. "So he managed to travel back in time. That shouldn't be possible. And he carried you with him? Then what happened?"

"Nothing. The fight was over."

The Time Lord teleported to nine o'clock. "Yes. Then what happened?"

How much detail did he want? Yugo wished that the clocks would stop. Their ticks melded together like the rattling of dead men's bones. "His fortress collapsed, his machines deactivated, and he lost."

"You misunderstand. Was Nox the Xelor executed according to Sadida law, or was he killed in battle?"

Yugo's eyes widened in realization. "He wasn't killed. I...we let him go."

"I...see," he said after a moment. "So after centuries of murder and of massacre, after destroying civilizations and ancient beings, you _let him go._ Have you no sense of _justice_?"

Adamai's eyes flashed angrily. "Yugo was just doing what he thought was right! You-"

The Time Lord silenced the dragon with a swift motion of his hand and motioned Yugo to continue.

"No," Yugo said finally. "I guess I don't. But if _justice _means punishing those who hurt people, but leaving the people they hurt to suffer, then I don't want it!" Amalia put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down. It didn't work. "You want to know why I let Nox leave? Because I knew what he was trying to do. He spent the last _two hundred years_ trying to return to his family, and he _failed!_" _Don't let me fail._ "I gave him mercy because he just lost his dreams forever, and I couldn't give him anything else."

The clocks kept ticking, a furious chorus of time itself. The Time Lord teleported to six o'clock on the floor design, between them and the exit. He uncrossed his legs and for the first time since they entered, his feet touched the ground. "I am finished here. _Xelor!_ I leave them to you."

The clocks screamed a cacophony of desperation, trying to get in their last heartbeat before-

And it all went silent.

WWW

a/n It's hard to maintain youthful enthusiasm while engaging in politics. It would be so much easier to say, "There's nothing you can do to stop us from coming back, so just stay out of our way and you'll be fine." But that would be, you know, wrong. I don't mean to exaggerate Yugo's character, but at least twice he avoided using the Eliacube because he was afraid he'd go mad with power, and when you consider all the things that he faced that he wasn't afraid of (demons, dragons, that giant multiheaded golem to get Grougal's Dofus, Nox), that says something.


	5. Debts

Wakfu

Worthy of the Crown

Chapter Five

Debts

"But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?"  
Mark Twain

Adamai didn't move. Amalia didn't move. Even the Time Lord didn't move. Yugo felt a chill go up his spine. He turned around. At twelve o'clock, floating a few inches above the ground stood Nox.

"You're alive," Yugo stated. "I thought you were dead. Adamai said that he felt your Wakfu leave the world."

"He did," Nox agreed. He didn't seem angry, like he was last time they met, but there was something in his voice that didn't seem to fit. Yugo realized it was sanity.

"But you're not dead." He knew he should be worried, but part of him was still thrown off by how his heart was still beating when everything else had stopped.

"I won a bet."

"Oh. That's good."

"No."

"Oh." Yugo looked at Adamai and Amalia, still unable to move, not even aware that they were frozen. "Are you going to release my friends?" He didn't want to fight Nox, but he never did before either.

"I'd rather this conversation remained private."

"Anything you can say to me you can say to them."

"Because you don't keep secrets from your friends, King Yugo."

Yugo hesitated. Patience. That was the other thing that was different. Before Nox had always been in a frantic rush, ready to strangle Time to death if he couldn't beat it into submission. Now, he seemed like he could wait until the end of... "So what do you what do you want, Nox?"

"To discuss the position of this people on the return of yours."

"So you speak for the Xelor now?"

"I _am_ the Xelor."

Yugo froze. "You...oh. The Time Lord, he said—he called—and then you..." He called for Xelor, and Nox appeared. Yugo heard Pinpin mention something like that, when his friend Goultard became the new Iop god, but... "But how?"

"Like I said," Nox said, with his alien, godlike calm. "I won a bet. The gods, you see, suffer terminal vanity. It is nearly requisite when men place absolute faith in fallible deities. The previous Xelor has been trying to find a replacement since Ogrest's Chaos."

Ogrest's Chaos. Yugo had heard the stories. People called it the day the gods failed. "And he couldn't go back in time," Yugo supplied. "And you did."

"He never _tried_," Nox spat, anger creeping into his voice. "He had what I sought for two centuries and did nothing but languish."

"So what are you going to do now that you're a god?" Yugo asked. What else could he ask?

"God?" Nox laughed bitterly. "I'm a clockmaker who has accumulated too many debts. A clockmaker should know better than to get behind on his debts. Regardless, we were discussing the end of the Eliatrope's exile."

"Right! I can offer your people additional Zaap portals, ancient Draconic knowledge, and, um..." He glanced at Amalia and Adamai, wishing that they could back him up.

"You are not so petty as to hold a grudge," Nox said. "You'd share your people's bounty with anyone who didn't deserve it."

"Then what do you want?" What can you offer a god? _What do gods fear most?_

"I want you to remember me."

Yugo looked up at him. "Remember you? Of course I'll remember you. No one will ever be able to forget you." Nearly wiping out entire kingdoms had that effect on people's memories.

"They never knew me. They only knew a nightmare in the Ogrest's shadow. Even Grougaloragran, with all his wisdom, could barely begin to see me. That's why only you can do this, Yugo. I want to be remembered for the monster I was, not for the monster that I wasn't. And in return, I will show Nrutas—" he motioned to the immobile Time Lord— "a vision of what your people have done with the world before the fall of Orgonax and the golden age they created."

Yugo nodded, understanding. In the end, no one wanted to be forgotten any more than they wanted to be alone. "It's a deal," he said. "But before you go, can I ask you something?

"You may."

Yugo glanced over his shoulder at the Time Lord. "I heard a rumor that the Time Lord, you called him Nrutas? Is that his name? I heard a rumor that he sacrificed his son to prolong his life. That's not true, is it?"

"Nrutas and his son, Monortem, had a disagreement, and Monortem left. Nrutas fabricated those rumors to facilitate his son's anonymity. I cannot say that you will meet Monortem in your travels, but if you do, his skills may help you. Is there anything else?"

"Yes, one more thing," Yugo said. "All the things you did, it was to find your family. Now that you've become a god, did you ever..."

For a moment Nox didn't answer, and Yugo began to wish that he didn't ask. "Thank you," Nox said at last. "For not killing Igole. We've been through a lot together. Goodbye, Yugo."

He vanished, and the sound of clocks returned. His friends noticed that he had flickered a few feet away from where he was before time stopped. "What happened?" Amalia demanded. She turned to the Time Lord, who had teleported to his original position at twelve o'clock. "Did you freeze time?"

"Did you receive your answer?" he asked Yugo, ignoring the question.

"Yes."

"Then I can give you no other."

"What?" Adamai asked. "Wait, what happened?"

"It's time to go," Yugo said.

"What? But we're not done here!"

"Yes, we are," Yugo insisted. He bowed to the Time Lord Nrutas. "Thank you for your time."

"But—"

"I'll tell you later."

WWW

"So, the Xelors are going to help us?" Adamai asked after they left. "The part of the negotiations that I saw didn't seem to be leaning that way."

"That's just a diplomatic tactic," Amalia explained. "As long as you don't look too interested, you can try to get a better offer."

Yugo wanted to tell them about Nox, but how would they take it? With blasphemy, probably. Nox had tried to wipe out Amalia's entire people—had succeeded, actually, for less than twenty minutes—and had killed the dragon that had raised Adamai. They wouldn't be too thrilled about Nox becoming the new Xelor god, and as long as Yugo had divine friends, he'd rather not offend them. He'd bring it up later.

"Hey, bro," Adamai said after a while. "Did you really mean what you said back there?"

"About what?"

"Justice," the dragon said. "You said you didn't believe in it. Was that true?"

Yugo looked away. "I don't know, bro. I mean, it seems kind of cold hearted."

"That's because you're confusing it with law. You break the law, you get punished, but if the law is corrupt, then it's not justice. Look, remember how Tristepin died? And he's not anymore, right? And sure, Nox killed Grougal, but now I can watch him grow up just like he watched me grow up."

"Whereas the Soft Oak died," Amalia added. "And he's still dead. The forest may recover, but some of the trees I've known my whole life are gone for good."

"I'm not trying to minimize that," Adamai said earnestly. "But if you don't believe in justice, Yugo, then what else is there? What do you have left?"

"I have you guys," Yugo replied. "My friends have never let me down."

Adamai frowned, then his expression brightened. "I've got it! Yugo, you do what's right most of the time, right?"

"Most of the time?" Amalia repeated. "When has he ever not?"

"Exactly. And you're pretty happy with your life right now, right?"

"Reasonably so, yes," Yugo admitted.

"See?" Adamai asked triumphantly. "That's justice. If you didn't try to be good, you wouldn't be as happy."

Yugo thought about that for a moment, then his face burst into a wide grin. What kind of friends would they be if they didn't try to cheer him up when he was down? They were better friends than he felt he deserved, but there was no reason to press the point.

"So," he said instead, opening up his map. "Two down, ten to go. Where to next?"

WWW

a/n Because no dissertation on rule and governance would be complete without a thorough discussion of justice and mercy. Nox is one of my favorite characters, and I wanted to include him even if I had to bring him back from the dead and deify him. But seriously, I can't think of anyone who would make a better God of Time than him. I don't know exactly how the Wakfu pantheon works, except for what I learned from Goultard, and he's technically a demigod, so I had to extrapolate a few things.

Nrutas is Saturn spelled backwards, who is the Roman equivalent of the titan Chronos. Monortem backwards is almost Metronome. I wanted to name one of the Xelors Arcana in reference to the band Nox Arcana, but I guess I'll do that later.


	6. Fool's Gold

Wakfu

Worthy of the Crown

Chapter Six

Fool's Gold

Not all treasure is silver and gold, mate.  
-Captain Jack Sparrow

The rampaging Rinoplex was causing problems. They usually did when they were upset. The Rinoplex was a creature with four legs, three horns, and a large mouth. It would have been completely ignored if it weren't thirty feet tall.

"We need a plan, and fast," Yugo said.

"I told you, we have a plan," Adamai insisted. "We light it on fire until it stops trying to kill everyone!"

"In this weather?" They were standing in a torrential downpour on the side of the road.

"Fine, we'll _boil_ it until it stops trying to kill people!"

"Intense heat has never calmed down anyone!" Yugo shouted over the rain. "Besides, the Rinoplex isn't evil, it's just angry."

"And what kind of name is Rinoplex for something like that anyway?" Adamai demanded. "It sounds like someone just sneezed."

"Not everyone sneezes like you do, bro."

"Could you two hurry up?" Amalia asked. She was maintaining the brambles that kept the beast from attacking. "I can't keep this up forever!"

"Okay, I have an idea!" Yugo said. "Adamai, remember that spell you used to seal my eyes shut? Can you use it on him?"

The dragon shook his head. "It doesn't work like that. His eyes have to close on their own, and then I can keep them that way."

"So we'll have to poke him in the eyes, and then you can blind—"

"_EEEAAAIIIHHH!"_

Yugo looked up quickly. "Oh no! It ate Amalia!"

"What?" Adamai demanded turning to where she had been standing. "Dang it! I wasn't looking! Make it do it again!"

"This is serious, Adamai! We have to get her out of there!"

"Alright," he said, swelling to several times his normal size. He became a stone beast, larger even than his Crackler form. "One improvised, unanesthetized surgical operation coming right up!"

"No, Adamai! That could kill him!"

"You're a king, Yugo," Adamai said. "You can't afford to be paralyzed by indecision."

"I'm not paralyzed, I just have a better idea." Yugo jumped in front of the roaring beast. "HEY! BIG GUY! Eat me! I'm delicious!"

The Rinoplex roared. Yugo jumped in his mouth. Adamai watched and shrank back to his normal form. "A better idea," he repeated. "Right. That's exactly what this is."

A blue portal opened up in midair, spilling out Yugo, Amalia, and a small quantity of stomach fluids. Yugo clutched his head and moaned as he was hit with the recoil of transporting a passenger and Amalia fell to her hands and knees and threw up.

The Rinoplex, having experienced the novel sensation of vomiting through an extra-dimensional orifice, stumbled away to go back home and take a nice, long nap.

"That was so much better than my idea," Adamai said brightly. "I don't know why I didn't come up with it myself."

"Horrible," Amalia moaned. "That was just...horrible."

WWW

It was an uphill journey to their next destination. Literally. The Enutrof Kingdom was built in the Etiryp Mountains, and while the mines delved as greedily and as deep as they could, the city stood on the surface. They checked into an inn to get a warm meal and a hot bath before meeting with the king, because it wouldn't do to meet with a monarch smelling like monster vomit.

Yugo pointed out that the rain had already washed them off, and they already smelled better than most of the people on the street. Evidently he was missing something very important.

"So, the Enutrof king," Yugo said afterwards. The rain had softened from a downpour to a light drizzle. "What's he like?"

"No, I don't want one, and besides, I like the rain," Amalia said, fending off an umbrella peddler. "What? Oh, he's an Enutrof, so kamas are serious business. He's a king, so use the same etiquette that you use with my dad, only more so. Think Ruel with a golden crown that he hasn't pawned off yet."

"So do you think we could just buy our way through this?"

"Sadida! They smell like old socks when they're dry and wet socks when they're not." Amalia knelt down and grew a small bouquet of flowers. There was not enough sunlight to make them colorful, but she held them in front of her nose to block out the street smell. "No, we don't have that much money, but we can still make it worth his while. As long as we don't cost him any kamas, he'll remain neutral, and if we can convince him that we'll make him a profit, we'll be able to get him to invest in the Eliatropes' return. Offer him trading privileges and a chance to charge a toll at some new Zaap portals, and he'll be eating out of your hand."

"The Enuntrof king," Adamai mused. "I think I remember him. Was he old and fat with a big phorror?"

Amalia shrugged. "I only saw him once, and that was a long time ago. But that sounds right."

"Yeah, I wasn't too impressed with him."

"That's probably what he wanted you to think," Yugo said. "I've never met him, so I could be wrong, but if he's like Ruel, I bet he goes through loads of trouble to get people to underestimate him."

"How is that like Ruel?" Amalia asked.

"What, you never noticed how he always pretends to get knocked out or hides behind something in the middle of a fight?"

Amalia frowned. "I thought he was just a lazy coward."

"A coward?" Yugo repeated incredulously. "Amalia, he followed us to the end of the world. _Twice._ If he tries to look like a coward, that's just him being shrewd."

"Shrewd Stroud," Adamai mused.

"You're not going to start rhyming on me again, are you?"

"I promise nothing."

WWW

The palace gate keeper was a burly Enutrof with a grizzled beard and a pair of spades connected by a long chain. "What business do you have here?" he growled.

"We are here to meet with your king," Amalia declared.

"Is he expecting you?"

"No. Is he busy?"

"Yes."

"When will the king not be busy?"

"The king's always busy," the guard said. "And before you ask, no, he doesn't want to buy any cookies."

"Cookies?" she repeated indignantly. "Do I look like the kind of girl who goes around monarchs to sell them cookies?"

"That is the conclusion I came to, yes."

"I am Princess Amalia Sheran Sharm, of the Sadida Kingdom!"

"You are? And are you on Sadida business?"

Amalia hesitated. "Yes."

"Well, not technically," Yugo said.

Amalia glared at him. "You're making it really hard for me to lie, Yugo."

"Wait, Yugo?" the guard interrupted. "You're Yugo? From the Real Boitar?

"The real what?" Adamai asked.

"It's a Boufbowl team," Yugo explained. "And, yes. Once."

The guard's eyes grew wide. "I should have seen it immediately from your hat! Did you really score the winning goal?"

"Technically, but it really should have been—"

"I can't believe I'm meeting you in person! Can I have your autograph?"

Amalia scowled, and Adamai watched the exchange in abject confusion. "Um, sure, I guess," Yugo said.

The guard rummaged through his many, many pockets and pulled out a scrap of paper and something to write with. Yugo signed it, not entirely sure what else to put. The guard beamed like it was his birthday. He led them into the palace, assured them that the king would be with them in a few minutes, and left, looking at the scrap of paper like it was his first born son. "This thing is going to make me _rich_," he said to himself.

When they did meet the king, he was sitting on a golden throne. He had white hair, a round face, and little beady eyes. A large phorror sitting at his feet growled at them. "So you're the famous Brotherhood of the Tofu," he said. He did not sound happy to meet them. He just seemed tired.

"Thank you for taking the time to see us, your Majesty," Amalia said, bowing.

"Yes, well, I doubt you'll feel that way when we're done," the king replied. "I already know why you're here, and the answer's no."

Yugo gaped and looked at Amalia for some sort of loophole, some way to circumvent the abrupt rejection. Adamai growled angrily. "At least hear us out first!" he demanded.

"Exactly!" Yugo added. "I'm sure we can make it worth your while. You have no idea how important this is for us."

"Oh, I understand, alright," the king assured them. "By Enutrof, if our positions were reversed, I'd be doing exactly the same thing. But what I have declared, I have declared, and if I go back on my own decree for you, everyone will want me to go back on my decrees for them."

"And I understand how a monarch must be firm, absolutely," Amalia replied. "But this is an important and complex issue, and we think that there might be some aspects that you haven't considered."

"What's to consider?" the king asked. "I know he's your friend, but that alone does not absolve him of his crimes."

They paused. "Wait," Yugo said. "What are you talking about?"

The king blinked. "What are you talking about?" he replied evasively.

"We're trying to persuade you to support the return of the Eliatropes."

"You are?" The king relaxed a bit. "That's a relief. I thought you were here to get Ruel Stroud out of prison."

The Brotherhood of the Tofu exchanged a shocked glance. "Ruel's in prison?" Yugo asked. "For what?"

"Oh, a number of things," the king said uncomfortably. "Forging legal documents, evading arrest, embezzlement. Anyway, Eliatropes. Are there only Eliatropes in your extradimensional sanctuary, or are there dragons too?"

"There's only one dragon," Adamai said. "But he's really old."

"So Ruel's in prison?" Yugo said. "Can we see him? How long is he going to be stuck there?"

"Not very long," the king said. "Not very long at all. Just until the end of the week."

"Oh," Yugo sighed. "That's a relief."

Amalia frowned. "Is he being executed at the end of the week?"

The king opened his mouth and closed it. "He...might be."

"_What_? I can't believe this!" Yugo cried. "You're going to execute him?"

"Well, if we gave people free food and their own cell for breaking the law, they'd all do it."

"What exactly did he do?" Amalia asked.

The king sighed. "He was a very poor mayor, and became a very wealthy former mayor."

"Ruel was a mayor?" Adamai asked.

"He's done a lot with his life," Yugo explained. "But how does that earn him an execution?"

"He raised taxes until they were no longer sustainable. The citizens of the town he governed were forced to leave until he had the whole place to himself and all the kamas he could squeeze out of them."

"And you kill people for that?" Yugo demanded.

"Well, if you give people free food and a place to stay in exchange for breaking the law, they'd all do it," the king explained.

"But isn't there some other punishment you could give him?" Yugo asked. "Community service or a fine or something?"

At the word _fine,_ the king's eyes flashed, but a moment later he appeared as nervous and uncomfortable as he was before. "I suppose," he admitted. "There is a loophole for theft. If the accused has caused no violent harm during the crime or the arrest and pays for the requisite legal fees as well as a sum of four times the amount stolen, then he could absolve himself, per se."

"So how much would it be to settle his debt?"

The king frowned and started counting his fingers rapidly while muttering to himself. "Roughly two hundred thousand kamas. No, two hundred thousand, three hundred and nine kamas."

Yugo looked up at Amalia, who had been left in charge of the group's finances. "So, how much does that leave us with?" he asked hopefully.

Amalia grimaced and shook her head. Yugo's heart sank. He thought about Ruel, his father's oldest friend and one of his closest ones, languishing in a cell waiting to die. He also wondered how a prison break would affect negotiations. It didn't look good.

Amalia snapped her fingers suddenly. "We do have that much," she said. "Just not with us. Could your majesty delay the execution until we get back?"

"How much time do you need?"

"We have a heap of kamas on an island in the middle of the sea, so a few weeks? A month, tops."

"Well, I suppose I could allow that."

"Actually," Adamai said, "could you give us a moment, Mr. King? We need to talk about something real fast." He dragged Amalia and Yugo a few feet away.

"Is something wrong, bro?" Yugo asked.

"Yeah. This island of kamas in the middle of the sea...you're talking about Oma, aren't you?" Oma was the name on the island where Grougaloragran lived, where Adamai had grown up. Where Grougaloragran died.

"It's the only thing I could think of," Amalia said. "What's the big deal?"

"That's Grougal's horde!" Adamai said.

"So? He's not using it! Why would he need a mountain full of treasure in the first place?"

"That's not the point. It's _stealing_."

"Grougal died, remember?"

"But he's not dead anymore."

"Yeah, but think about it," Amalia said. "After he died, who inherited all his stuff? That would be you, right?"

"I'm not sure it works that way with dragons," Yugo said.

"Well, do you have any other ideas?"

Yugo frowned thoughtfully. "Does diplomatic immunity apply?"

"Do you even know what that means?" Amalia asked.

"Sort of. That's why I'm asking you."

"Diplomatic immunity only applies to diplomats," Amalia explained. "Look, we don't even know if the treasure is still there. For all we know, Nox took it, but this will still buy us time."

"What would Nox want with a pile of gold?" Yugo asked.

"I don't know," she said exasperatedly. "Why do crazy people do anything?"

Gold didn't have any life in it, and wasn't really good for anything except trading, so Nox would have left it there. "Are you okay with this, Adamai?" Yugo asked. "I don't know what he would want us to do with his things, but you knew Grougal better than any of us, so it's up to you. But we can't let anything happen to Ruel, and I don't have any other ideas."

Adamai scowled. "Fine. I'll just figure out a way to pay him back later."

They turned back to the Enutrof king. "Thank you for your time, your majesty. We will return within the month." They bowed and left.

The king relaxed in his throne after they were gone. If it all worked out, he would be able to trade an execution he had never wanted in exchange for a small fortune. It was turning out to be a very good day for him.

WWW

a/n I pretend to be no expert on Wakfu zoology, so I'm going to make up monsters and animals whenever I have too. There probably is a method to the madness, but I haven't found it yet. There is no foreshadowing in this chapter.


	7. Chains

Wakfu

Worthy of the Crown

Chapter Seven

Chains

I wear the chain I forged in life...I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.  
-Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

There are four pillars in Boufbowl. First, be stronger than your opponent. They will try to hit you. Hit them harder. Second, be faster than your opponent. They will try to chase you. Run faster. Third, cheat. There is no room for both honor and victory. Fourth, people die.

Lying in a pit with a bucket beside him and a steel grating above him, Ruel awaited the fourth pillar. It wasn't so bad, he decided. He lived a good life. But what would happen to all his kamas? Who would inherit them? Not his grandmother. That was some consolation, but all his savings had been confiscated to "pay his debt to society." What sort of nonsense was that? Society never lent him a kama.

Ruel heard footsteps. At least three sets of feet. After three, the sounds mixed together indistinguishably. _What day is it?_ It couldn't be his time already, could it?

"Ruel? Ruel, are you down there?"

Ruel knew that voice. He looked up, the joints in his back cracking from disuse. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. He coughed. "Yugo? What are you doing here?"

Yugo looked down at him from above the pit, gripping the gratings. He was a good kid. Ruel thought about telling him that he had been written into his will, but what was the point? There wasn't anything left to inherit. All the same, Ruel didn't have many friends that were worth more than gold.

"That's a friendly hello," said another voice. It was Amalia, the princess. Was the entire Brotherhood of the Tofu together again? "I don't know how you get into these messes. What would you do if you didn't have us to help you out?"

Ruel stood up in his pit. "Are you here to break me out? I don't think the next guard patrol is due for a few more minutes. We can make it if we hurry."

"I heard that," a third voice rumbled. It was the voice of a guard that Ruel had come to know during his incarceration.

"Oh, hello, Philip. I didn't see you up there."

"Yeah, I was supposed to tell you that you had visitors, but I figured you'd rather hear it from them," the guard replied.

"That was...awfully considerate," Ruel noted awkwardly. "Thank you."

"No problem," Philip said.

"We're not going to break you out," Yugo said. "Even better, we are going to free you. We're going to clear your name, Ruel. It may take us awhile, but your king decided to delay your execution for another month to give us time. We just came by to tell you not to worry."

Ruel smiled. Yugo was just like his dad, and you could feed the genetics to the Ogrest. "Worry?" Ruel asked cheerfully. "I wasn't worried in the least. Well, it's been nice seeing you lot, but I don't want to keep you. Good luck with my name."

Yugo hesitated. "Are you sure you're going to be alright down there?"

Ruel laughed. "I've never been better. I can sleep all day, and the food here is great." Great was a relative term, but knowing that King Aurum was paying for every meal added a lot of flavor.

"Really? Well, okay. We'll just be going now," Yugo said awkwardly.

"Take your time," Ruel called after them as he heard them leaving. "I'll be right here if you need me." He smiled and sat down again. Yugo was a good kid. He'd find a way to...clear...his name.

How _would _he clear Ruel's name? It wasn't like there was any question of guilt. Then he realized the only thing Yugo would do, the thing that _only_ Yugo would do. Yugo was a good Boufbowler, but he didn't know how to cheat. And he didn't know the value of gold.

"Yugo wait!" he called out. The only answer was his own echoes. Yugo was already gone. Ruel fumed in frustration. It would take an obscene number of kamas to clear his name—if they were going to someone else. But if Ruel escaped—if he _escaped_—before Yugo got back, then no one would get anything, and no one would lose anything.

But what could he do? He had nothing except for the clothes on his back, the shoes on his feet, and a bucket, literally, full of crap. What could he do in a month?

A slow smile crept across his face. With a whole month, what could he not do?

WWW

Later that day, Yugo and Adamai built the first half of a Zaap portal that would take them back from Oma Island. They weren't sure if they'd need it, but naval voyages had a tendency to accumulate distractions, and a Zaap could cut their travel time in half.

Afterwards, they continued the ancient tradition of the Brotherhood of the Tofu of looking for a ship. The Enutrof kingdom was too far inland for an ocean port, but the Gilt River ran nearby where the merchant ships willing to haggle with Enutrofs came to trade. The three of them walked up and down the docks, trying to find someone willing to grant them passage.

"Hold on," Amalia said. "Does that woman look familiar?" She pointed at a woman with long, white hair and pointed ears.

Yugo looked at her. "I don't _think _I've seen her before," he admitted. The woman was in an argument with an Enutrof. She was calm at first, but through the Enutrof's insistence, she grew more and more frustrated.

Amalia frowned. "I know her from somewhere, I just can't..." The woman drew a sabre that hung by her hip and swung it around menacingly. Amalia snapped her fingers. "That's it! Captain!"

"Captain who?" Adamai asked.

The Enutrof remembered another pressing engagement and hurriedly left. "No, just Captain," Amalia said. "She gave us a ride to the Zaap to Sadida while you two were going after Grougal's Dofus. Come on, she can help us." They approached the captain, and Amalia greeted her. "Hey, Captain. Having troubles with the locals?"

The captain sighed dramatically. "Just another scam artist. This place is full of them. That one was trying to charge me 'docking fees.' Ha! They must think I was born yesterday, though honestly, when it comes to gold, some Enutrofs have no shame."

"I'm surprised that you deal with Enutrofs at all," Amalia admitted. "If you're trying to sell your merchandise, the Enutrof Kingdom would be the last place I'd go."

The captain laughed. "The trick, young Sadida, is that the Enutrofs are only stingy when it comes to gold. Do you see those mountains? They hold the largest gold mines in the world, but what happens when they dig up iron or other metals my mistake? Copper is no good to them, and if it's not gold, it's just wasting space, so they sell it. I can get a fairly good deal on semiprecious metals here in exchange for cheap gobball wool that Osamodas would otherwise throw away, and sell the metal off in the Feca Kingdom or even Brakmar if I want to make the trip." The captain gave Amalia a scrutinizing look. "Have I seen you before? I can't place it, but you look familiar."

"You mean you don't remember me?" Amalia knew she shouldn't feel bothered. She had been wearing a fur coat at the time, and Ruel had handled all the negotiations. "You gave me and three of my friends transport to a Zaap portal a while ago."

"Could you be more specific?"

"We got attacked by pirates and fought them off."

The captain frowned and shook her head.

"We paid for passage with a talking map."

"You what?" Yugo asked.

The captains face lit up. "Oh, right, now I remember you. If you travel enough, you can never keep track of anyone, but yes. What was your name again?"

"Amalia," she said. "Amalia Sheran Sharm, and this is my friend Yugo and his brother Adamai."

The captain glanced at Yugo briefly—he had an honest, trustworthy face—but studied Adamai carefully. The dragon was in his humanoid form, but he had bone-white skin, not enough fingers, and hooves. "You're not a mime, are you?"

Adamai gave Yugo his _this is why I hate dealing with humans_ look and said, "If I were a mime, would I be talking to you?"

"Fair enough," she admitted. "Well, unless there was anything else..."

"Actually, yes," Amalia said. "We need a ride to the Island of Oma."

Her eyes widened. "Not a chance. They say that island is guarded by a giant sea monster that rips apart any ship that sails close."

"Really?" Adamai laughed. "That, uh, 'sea monster' doesn't live there anymore."

"It doesn't? What happened to it?"

Yugo and Amalia answered simultaneously. "It died," Amalia said while Yugo said, "He's living at my dad's house."

The captain looked at them. "Wait, what?"

"He died, and _then_ he started living at my dad's house," Yugo explained.

"But it _is_ dead," the captain clarified.

"He died, yes," Yugo said. "And he is no longer guarding Oma."

"You're certain of this?"

"Yes," Yugo said solemnly.

"Well alright," the captain said, satisfied. "Though you should know that I no longer accept maps as payment."

"How about buried treasure?" Amalia offered. "We left a mountain of it last time we were there, and we could offer you a reasonable share."

"You don't mind, do you, Ad?" Yugo asked quickly.

Adamai shook his head. "It hardly matters at this point."

"Buried treasure, you say," the captain mused. "Taken from a cursed island. I know I shouldn't, but how I can refuse?"

They set sail later that day. Every time they set sail before on their adventures, Yugo had looked ahead, but this time he looked back, back at the river port, back at the Enutrof Kingdom, back at the Etiryp Mountains.

Back to where Ruel lay in prison.

_We'll be back soon, Ruel,_ Yugo thought. _We'll free you._

_Just you wait._

WWW

a/n I would like to thank Touristism for writing a surprisingly in depth character study for Ruel, that can be found at www. wakfu. and then a com slash en/forum/30-fan-art/66875-ruel-stroud-mighty-miser . The url nazis make it really tricky, but that should work. Technically there are five pillars of Boufbowl if you count the Audience Surprise, the last one being to be prepared for everything, but when you're in your own personal pit of despair, who wants to get technical? I always expect to have something important to say here, but I really don't, so just thanks for reading.


	8. Fear

Wakfu

Worthy of the Crown

Chapter Eight

Fear

"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."  
-Mark Twain

The Gilt River soon emptied into the vast ocean. There was something about seeing nothing but water on all sides, the blue sea fading into the horizon and the sky that always filled Yugo's mind with wonder. Like staring into the stars at night, the ocean was the essence of infinity.

They had been sailing for about a week now on the nameless vessel. An unnamed ship was supposed to be bad luck, but while sailors had a reputation for being superstitious, the captain took the opposite approach. If you accumulate enough bad luck, she explained, it will fall off the edge and come back on the other side as good luck. If the captain had a name, she didn't tell anyone, and if a nameless ship was bad luck, then a nameless captain was even worse. The logic didn't make much sense to Yugo, but considering how little trouble they'd been having on the voyage, the captain was probably on to something.

Yugo took an instant liking to the captain. Her easy going and cheerful disposition belied the professionalism with which she steered her ship and the expertise with which she wielded her sabre. Amalia told him that the ship could even travel over ice like a giant pair of skates, making it able to traverse any kind of water except for steam. Yugo wondered what kind of ship could handle steam travel. Probably one with very big sails.

Adamai had gone swimming and would come back later with lunch. Amalia was sunbathing on the ships railing. She was photosynthesizing, she said, but Yugo knew that if he tried to photosynthesize half as much as she did, he'd photosynthesize his skin into a red, blistering sunburn.

With nothing really worth doing, Yugo decided to learn how to juggle. He ducked into the kitchen and came back with an apple, a biscuit, and a bagel, because three of a kind would just be too easy. He tossed them up experimentally, testing their weight, and threw all of them up in the air. He caught the apple as it came down in a portal, and drew a second to throw it back up. The biscuit and the bagel came down at the same time, so he drew a portal under each of them, switching as they fell upwards.

A few more throws later, the objects began to spread out, forming a triangle with Yugo in the center. Well, that was complicated. He didn't have eyes on the back of his hat, as useful as that might be, and spinning around to keep an eye on everything made him dizzy, but he was starting to get the rhythm down, and he decided to add a fourth object.

He couldn't run back to the kitchen and back without dropping everything, but there had to be something he could use on deck. He noticed Amalia's doll wandering past. "Hey, vegedoll," he said. "I need you to help me with something. When I say, 'jump,' you jump into one of my portals and we'll see how long I can keep four things in the air, okay?"

The doll hissed at him and ran away. From the front of the ship by the steering wheel, the captain laughed. "If it means anything," she said, "I wouldn't jump through one of those things either. It seems horribly disorientating."

"It's really not that bad, after you get used to it," Yugo called back, noticing that the bagel was almost out of momentum.

"I'll take your word on that," the captain said. "But if you need something else to juggle, why don't you use your map? It's about the right size."

Yugo couldn't spare the glance, but Grufon was tied to his belt around his waist. "I can't," Yugo said. "I don't have any hands left." Then he noticed his shoes. "My feet, however, are free." Yugo proceeded to perform a complicated maneuver to get one of his shoes off that included hopping on one foot and spinning around while the rational part of his mind was still wondering why he was juggling in the first place.

Meanwhile, Amalia finished her photosynthesis. She yawned, stretched, and pulled the apple out of midair at the exact moment Yugo tripped.

"So, what are you up to?" Amalia asked, taking a bite out of the apple.

The bagel and the biscuit rolled across the deck. "Nothing anymore," Yugo said, picking them up.

"Well, it looked pretty silly, whatever it was. Do you know how much longer this trip will take?"

"Let's check." Yugo pulled out and unrolled his map. "Hey, Grufon. Are we there yet?"

"For the last time," the lesser Shushu said irritably. "We'll get there when we get there!"

"He says we're close," Yugo translated. "It will be nice to see Oma Island again. I remember when I thought that Oma would be the end of our journey."

"That seems like forever ago," Amalia said. "I mean, Pinpin wore a _shirt_ back then."

Yugo laughed, remembering how he met the Iop knight, crashing into his dad's inn looking for carnage, how Yugo managed to free him from Rubilax, how they found Amalia and Evangeline in the woods being attacked by polters.

"Hey, Amalia? Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Why did you decide to join us?"

Amalia gave him an astonished look. "What kind of question is that? We're friends, aren't we? Do you think that I'd let you meet with all the leaders of the world on your own?"

"No, not this time," Yugo explained. "The first time. Back before we knew each other. Ruel came because he's best friends with my dad, Pinpin came because he had some knightly honor debt, and Evangeline came to look after you, but I don't know why you came."

For a moment she didn't answer. She just stared outward across the infinite sea, and Yugo realized that, like him, she didn't have an answer. "Why do you think I came?" she asked finally.

_Why?_ "Because you wanted to."

Amalia smiled. "And you're probably right. But while we're asking deep, prying questions, I have one for you."

"Okay."

"What," she said, "what, what, _what_ do you keep under your hat?"

Yugo's eyes widened and he felt his face grow hot. "Amalia, you can't just _ask_ someone something like that!"

"Well, why not? We've traveled over the entire world together, and I have never seen you take your hat off. What, are you secretly bald? Do you have horns? You can trust me, I won't tell anyone."

"Hey, do I ask you to take off your clothes?" Yugo asked indignantly. He knew she was just teasing, mostly, but still...

"Yes, once," Amalia pointed out.

Adamai, returning from his swim, flew past them with a fish in his hands. "I'm sure that made a lot more sense in context."

"Adamai!" Amalia yelped. "It wasn't what it sounded like."

"That's what I said." He started roasting his fish slowly with his own breath.

"It's a long story," Amalia said.

"We were in prison," Yugo explained.

"Oh, prison," the dragon said. "In that case it's no big deal."

"Anyway," Yugo said, changing the subject. "We're almost to Oma. You looking forward to it? You did grow up there."

Adamai shrugged and took a bite out of his fish, trying to look nonchalant. "This isn't poisonous, is it? Oh well. Honestly, I'm not even sure the island's still there. Grougaloragran wouldn't have gone down without a fight, and he could have scattered Oma to the four corners of the world if he wanted to, and even if he didn't, it'd hardly be recognizable."

"Well, that's an awfully optimistic attitude," Yugo said. There was definitely something bothering him, he decided. Adamai was only that flippant when he was nervous.

"Really?" Adamai asked, finishing off his fish. "It must be my nostalgia talking."

"Assuming that the island's still there," Yugo said, "how many people do you think could live on it? See, I was thinking, for our people to return, they'll need a place to stay, so maybe we could make Oma an Eliatrope colony or something."

Adamai frowned thoughtfully. "If you stuffed everyone in crowded, several story buildings, the island could hold, I don't know, five hundred, a thousand people? But they'll need to eat, too, and Sadida farming techniques aside, foraging wouldn't support that much more than fifty people. Fishing could add to that, but you'd have to calculate seasonal ocean currents because I won't."

"But we could import our food from somewhere else."

"In exchange for what?"

Yugo hesitated. "You know, there is a lot about economics that I don't understand."

"The invisible hand is a tricky little guy," Adamai agreed.

"Anyway, fifty people is a good start," Yugo said. "I'm sure we can work out the rest."

A few minutes later the captain called out. "Land ho!"

"What, we're there already?" Yugo gasped. "Grufon, why didn't you say anything?"

"You didn't ask," the map responded.

Yugo laughed, glad that he could rely on his Shushu, at least, to be unreliable. "And we didn't even wreck the boat this time."

"Don't jinx it," Amalia cautioned. "We still have a few miles left."

"Hey, Ad. Was it like this when we left?"

Adamai squinted off into the horizon at the speck that marked the island. "I remember there being another mountain right there. Man, they really wrecked the place."

Yugo tried to make out some of the island's details from the distance. He couldn't distinguish any of its mountains, let alone see if any were missing. "I think you're making that up. Not even Eva could see that much this far away."

"I'm not Eva," Adamai replied.

"That's exactly my..." Yugo's voice trailed off as the boat began to shake. And when it shook, it shook like an earthquake. It rocked to the side so hard, it would have thrown Yugo overboard if he hadn't caught himself in one of his portals.

"I told you, Yugo!" Amalia shouted, clinging to the ships mast. "I told you not to jinx it!"

The captain grabbed onto the railing and peered over the edge. "Ogrest's Chaos!" she shouted. "It's a sea monster! You said the sea monster was gone!"

"It _was _gone!" Amalia screamed. "I didn't know there were any others!"

The ship slowly rose into the air. "There aren't any other sea monsters," Adamai said, levitating to avoid the tremors. "Grougal ate them centuries ago."

"Maybe another moved in," Yugo suggested. Even sea monsters needed to live somewhere, right? Yugo zaapped to the crow's nest where he would be able to stand without being knocked off his feet. From the vantage point, he could see what was attacking them. "Everybody, calm down! We're okay, they're friends."

"Friends?" the captain repeated. "How many sea monsters do you know?"

"They're not sea monsters," Yugo said. The sea calmed and the ship stopped shaking. "They're Sufokians."

A massive New Sufokian vessel emerged from the water beneath them. The Sufokians had approached them the first time the same way, back at the Crimson Claws Archipelago. It was, admittedly, a very impressive way to greet someone.

Two large doors on the top of the vessel opened up and a handful of soldiers armed with Stasis rifles spilled out. They wore dark blue uniforms with their faces covered by brass helmets, and one of them with the most knots on his shoulder addressed the ship.

"You are entering New Sufokian waters," he said. "Please state your name and reason for coming here, and we'll be forced to open fire." One of the other soldiers whispered something to him. "Sorry, _or_ we'll be forced to open fire."

"Hold on," Adamai said indignantly. "Since when are these Sufokian waters? These were my waters a few years ago."

"Holy fishpaste!" the head soldier gasped. "It's a dragon!"

"I dragon?" Adamai said in mock surprise. "Where?"

"Retreat!" the soldier ordered. "Tell the Lieutenant Corporal to open fire!"

Yugo zapped between them and their ship's entrance. "It's okay, we're friends!" he insisted. "We met your prince a few months ago and—"

The panicked soldier raised his rifle and pointed it at Yugo. "You are going to get out of our way, or so help me I will—"

Adamai, in the massive stone form of a Crackler, backhanded the soldier and sent him screaming into the ocean. The rest of the Sufokians raised their rifles at him. "Do not attempt to fire at my friends," Adamai ordered. "Or Amalia. You may, however, shoot them at me if you're feeling lucky."

The soldiers hesitated and lowered their weapons. "Hey, Adamai," Yugo said, peering over the edge to see where the first soldier was treading water. "Give me a hand, will you?" He grabbed onto Adamai for support and opened up a portal to fish the soldier out of the sea. "Sorry about that," he said. "We didn't mean to start a fight with anyone. What do you people have against dragons, anyway?"

"They're dangerous!" the first soldier explained emphatically. "One of those monsters destroyed half of an entire fleet at the Crimson Claws."

Amalia had gotten off the ship with the captain to join her friends. "That wasn't the dragon," she said. "Rushu did most of the damage."

"Who?"

"Rushu? You know, king of the Shushus, dark god of carnage and destruction?"

One of the Sufokians actually started laughing. "He's just a myth."

"If it makes you feel any better," Adamai said dryly, "so are dragons."

"There's actual empirical evidence to support the existence of dragons," another soldier said. "Characters like this 'Rushu' only appear in bedtime stories."

Amalia, Yugo, and Adamai exchanged a concerned look. "What are you doing on Oma anyway?" Amalia asked.

"You're the ones trespassing on our waters," the soldier reminded them. "We are not obligated to answer your questions."

"Yes you are," Adamai growled, towering over them.

"Oh, right," the soldier remembered suddenly. "We're colonizing it."

"You are?" Yugo asked. "Dang it! _We _were going to colonize it."

"Who's in charge of this expedition?" Amalia demanded. "We need to speak with him."

"Prince Adale leads us," the soldier said. "But he doesn't speak with just anyone."

"I am _not_ just _anyone_," Amalia snapped. "I am Princess Amalia Sheran Sharm of the Sadida people. He _will_ speak with me."

WWW

They found Prince Adale sitting on the beach on a comfy chair under an awning with a cup of tea. He stood up when he saw them approach.

"Princess Amalia," he said. "How good it is to see you, once again, traveling in what looks to be a mockery of a pirate ship."

"Pirate?" the captain said indignantly. "Oh, you scurvy sea dog."

Some of the Sufokians fingered their weapons, but the prince seemed unperturbed and sat down. "It is a pleasure to see you as well, Prince Adale of the New Sufokian Empire," Amalia said formally. "I was not expecting to see you again, here least of all. What brings you to the Island of Oma?"

The prince smiled as he sipped his tea. "It can't be merely a coincidence that we keep on meeting in these obscure corners of the world, but that is a matter for another day. New Sufokia is expanding from its center at the bottom of the ocean, Princess of the Forests, and we have claimed whatever uninhabited islands we could establish ourselves."

"And you needed an entire fleet for that?" Yugo asked. There weren't nearly as many ships as there were at the Crimson Claws, but there were still far more than necessary to deal with the few mosquitoes that threatened them.

"I am the crowned prince of New Sufokia," Adale reminded him. "I am entitled to a small honor guard. There were also rumors of some horrible monster guarding this island, but they seem to be mostly exaggerations."

Adamai scowled, but did not speak. "We spoke to some of your men," Yugo continued. "They seemed to blame Phaeris for all the damage that was done at the Crimson Claws, and they didn't believe in Rushu at all."

"I may have exaggerated the dragon's role in events," the prince admitted. "It was a token of my respect for the creature, nothing more. Besides, I couldn't include some mythological bogeyman in my official report, now could I? Who would take me seriously if I attributed the loss of half the fleet to divine intervention?"

"But that's really what happened," Yugo protested.

The prince shrugged. "If my father's officers wanted the truth, they'd accept it without bias. Regardless, I know you haven't come here to reminisce over old times. What really brings you to my small island?"

"Before it was your island, it was my home," Adamai growled. "And that sea monster you mentioned? He raised me from the day I hatched until the day he died. We've come to pick up a few things that he left behind."

"I see," Adale said, a glint in his eye. "And those few things wouldn't include the pile of gold that was stored under the mountain?"

"It would, actually," Yugo said.

"The treasure, as well as the rest of the island's bounty, has been claimed by New Sufokia, and I've already had the treasure shipped back to the capital."

"No!"

"Yes, unfortunately. If you had arrived a few weeks ago, you could have helped yourselves, but now..."

"And what about the Eliatrope temple that was down there?" Adamai demanded. "What did you do with that?"

"That was a temple?" the prince asked, bemused. "I noticed a few crude paintings on the walls, but they didn't match my furniture. We've done some...remodeling."

"You did _what_? _Why_?"

"We're not archaeologists," the prince explained offhandedly. "We cannot afford to care about the culture of forgotten peoples when our own is struggling, and frankly, little dragon, I'd rather let the past stay buried then let history hinder the future."

Adamai screamed in rage and threw himself at the Sufokian prince. The nearby soldiers raised their weapons in panic, but Yugo acted first. He caught Adamai in a portal and the dragon crashed into him instead. Adamai nearly blasted a hole through Yugo's chest before realizing what had happened.

"It's his _grave_," Adamai hissed. "This place is Grougaloragran's _grave_, Yugo! And they're defiling it!"

"I know, Adamai, I know. But it's okay, we can—"

"No! It's not okay." Adamai stood up and turned to face the prince. Several soldiers and Steamflexes pointed their weapons at him, but he ignored them. "You are a fool, Adale, and if all Shukrute hadn't broken loose when you attacked Phaeris, you'd be a dead fool. You're insatiable greed will doom you. By my word as a dragon, little human, that will be the _history_ of your people."

Adale looked at Adamai in contempt. "Your pet monster is waxing offensive," he said. "I suggest you leave."

"We were just leaving," Yugo said. He turned to his friends. "Come on. We should..."

"Yeah," Amalia agreed.

Adamai gave the prince a parting glare and flew back to the ship. Yugo stopped and looked over his shoulder at the man. He wished there was something he could say to make it all better, but how do you excuse blunt honesty? So he said nothing, and hoped that the prince would be able to excuse a few angry words.

As their ship sailed away, the island began to shrink into the distance. They weren't sure where they were headed, but whatever their destination was, Oma wasn't it. If the captain felt cheated about missing out on her share of the treasure, she didn't mention anything.

"Do you even know what diplomacy means?" Amalia asked, arguing with Adamai. "I'll give you a hint. It involves not threatening the nation of the person you're talking to."

"Leave me alone," Adamai growled sullenly. "They wouldn't have been our friends no matter what we said. We were brought together by nothing more than a common enemy that they have already forgotten."

"Yes, but we still could have..."

"We could have what, Amalia? Gotten on our hands and knees and begged him for a few thousand kamas? Even if that would work, can you honestly tell me that you would have groveled?"

She hesitated. "Well, maybe not _groveled_, but..."

"Exactly. I wouldn't have either. The only person in this group who would have is Yugo, and he's that last person here who should have to."

"Could we stop arguing already?" Yugo asked. "If there's one thing we can agree on, it's that we have more important things to worry about."

"No, I think this is something that we need to clear up," Amalia said.

"Is it more important than Ruel?" Yugo asked. Amalia stopped, and even Adamai looked down guiltily. "How are we going to rescue him now?"

WWW

Back on the beach, Prince Adale watched the crude sailboat depart. He sipped his tea, but it had already gone cold.

"Those were threats," General Mofette said. She was Adale's right hand officer and unequalled on the battlefield, even if she was a tad over enthusiastic. "And worse, insults. Can you really just let that pass?"

"They are but barbarians, ruled by superstitious nonsense," Adale replied. "It is not my responsibility to civilize them."

"But they should at least learn to fear you, if not respect you," she insisted. Her eyes were eager, hungry even. She had come to Oma expecting to do battle with a sea monster that had never shown up.

Adale saw that pale little lizard in his mind, snarling at him. "Oh, alright," he conceded. "Fire a warning shot, to send them on their way."

WWW

"When it all comes down to it," Amalia said as they continued to sail away, "I don't see any way you can have both. We don't have the kamas to buy Ruel's freedom, and if we break him out of prison, the king will see us as criminals. At the very least he'll refuse to negotiate with us, and he might even tell my dad."

"What if we made it look like someone else set him free?" Adamai suggested.

"Hey, that's a good idea," Yugo said, lighting up. "If the king thinks that one of Ruel's other friends broke him out, we can still negotiate with him about everything else."

"But who else would want to break _Ruel _out of prison?" Amalia asked. "He doesn't really have any friends besides us." Then she winced. "I just made him sound unbelievably pitiful, didn't I? I need to stop doing that when I'm trying to rationalize leaving him to die."

"Ruel has lots of friends," Yugo protested. "My dad, his Real Boitar buddies, that other Enutrof from that inn who knew him from his days in a rock band..."

"I don't think that guy was his friend," Amalia pointed out. "They seemed to hate each other."

"Oh, I'm sure they cared about each other, um, deep, deep, deep..." Yugo's voice trailed off as he saw the light from a violet star in the noonday sky. "What's that?"

"Oh no," Adamai gasped. "Abandon ship!"

"What?" the captain said. "Over my dead—"

It was a Stasis blast, a _New Sufokian_ Stasis blast, as wide as the ship they sailed on and powerful enough to knock Phaeris out of the sky. Acting instinctively, Yugo drew a portal as wide as he could and swallowed the refined destruction whole. He opened up a second portal and fired it back in the direction that it came.

WWW

"The main Stazer?" Adale observed. "There seems to be a great deal you do not understand about the concept of 'warning shots.'"

"If they survive," Mofette replied, "they'll be warned."

"And if they don't, you'll have just disintegrated the daughter of one of the twelve most powerful..." His voice trailed off as he saw a light in the sky. "I say, are they returning fire?"

WWW

"Bull's eye!" Adamai cheered. "Right in the flagship!"

Yugo's face paled as he realized what had happened. "Oh no," he said. "I shouldn't have done that."

"Yeah, well, they shouldn't have fired at us."

The captain peered out through her telescope. "Well, now. That does _not_ look promising."

"Is something wrong, Captain?" Amalia asked.

"Possibly," the captain admitted. "I mean, I don't want to sound pessimistic, but they certainly have a lot of ships that can move remarkably fast without sails. They also seem to be coming towards us."

"It was his ship," Amalia realized. "He _really_ likes his ship."

The closest of the Sufokian ships started firing. It missed, throwing up huge fountains of water as Stasis blasts exploded into the sea around them.

"How fast can this ship go?" Yugo asked urgently.

"She can move like the wind," the captain replied.

"Good."

"It's a calm day."

"Oh."

"You just had to tick him off, didn't you?" Amalia accused. "You just had to go and insult the guy with the unstoppable navy."

"I think we can agree that we both said a lot of things that he's going to regret," Adamai said. "But right now—" He raised his hands and blocked what would have been a direct hit with a force field. He then fell to his knees in shock and gasped.

"Are you okay, bro?" Yugo asked.

"Phaeris makes it look so easy," he muttered. "I'm fine, but I won't be able to take many more direct hits."

"I'll deflect whatever I can," Yugo decided. "You block anything that get's through."

"And how long do you think we can keep that up?" More ships came into range.

"Do you have a better idea?"

"No, do you?"

Yugo looked off towards Oma Island, where the Sufokian prince hopefully still sat on the shore, sipping his tea. "Yes."

"Oh," Adamai whispered, catching on. "Be fast. I'll hold them off for as long as I can."

"You're planning something recklessly dangerous, aren't you?" Amalia demanded.

Compared to the certain death they were facing already? Well, maybe, but a chance was still a chance. "I'll catch up with you at Moon Island."

"Don't you dare, Yugo! You've run off like this before."

"And I came back!" Yugo insisted. He didn't have time for long goodbyes. He didn't have any time at all. "Be safe. I'm sorry."

He jumped off the ship and into a portal. The rain came down. And Yugo flew, a ribbon of blue light against the storm.

WWW

a/n I wasn't expecting the chapter to be this long, but oh well. There wasn't really a good place to stop earlier. I don't always end my chapters with cliffhangers, but when I do, I disappear off the map for no reason and forget to update. As soon as I saw the quote, I thought of Wakfu. I don't know if Yugo was in his Dofus for billions of years, but he was stuck in there for a while.


	9. Shame

Wakfu

Worthy of the Crown

Chapter Nine

Shame

"Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame."

-Benjamin Franklin

Yugo flew like lightning, faster than a thought, faster than time. Stasis blasts filled the air, but they had no more chance of hitting him than an army of Cras aiming at a mosquito. His friends, though, they were the ones at risk. With one lucky shot, they could disappear, their presence ripped from his mind like his heart from his chest. He wouldn't let that happen. He would _not_ let that happen!

He'd have to make Adale stop. He couldn't just ask him, he'd have to terrify him. The whole reason they were on this quest was because the World of Twelve was afraid of what his people could do. Well, maybe they should be afraid.

Prince Adale still sat on the beach, mildly annoyed at the inconvenience of the ordeal. How dare he? How _dare_ he sit in comfort, sipping his tea while people died? _They're not dead yet,_ Yugo reminded himself. _Not yet, not ever!_

The guards didn't have time to react, the prince barely had time to notice before Yugo bowled into him, hurtling both of them into the sand. "Call them off!" he shouted, grabbing the man by the collar.

The prince blinked, disorientated, focusing on Yugo on top of him, realizing who he was. "Stand down," he ordered his men. "You're likely to kill both of us if you fire." His guards lowered their weapons. Yugo barely noticed them.

"Not them, _them_!" he said, pointing at the ships. "Tell them to stop firing at my friends before they kill someone!"

"And I suppose you'll kill me if I don't?" the prince sneered. "I don't know if you've thought this far ahead, boy, but if you kill me, there won't be enough _dust_ left of you to make a man sneeze."

Yugo screamed and blasted a nearby Steamflex with a Wakfu beam. Wakfu wasn't as destructive as Stasis, but he could carve through stone when he wanted to. "Listen to me, Prince Adale. I will know the exact instant when my friends die, the _exact instant_!" He still remembered that moment in Nox's clock when he felt Pinpin die. He wouldn't let that happen again. "But I _don't_ know what I'll do next. You can end this right now. No one has to die, Adale. _Call—them—off._"

WWW

Death rained. The essence of death, destruction, chaos, and entropy filled the sky. The captain steered the ship and Adamai maintained a shield to block the Stasis blasts. Amalia watched, feeling useless. Afraid, too, that they could all die at any moment, but mostly useless.

A blast crashed into Adamai's shield, but instead of stopping, the forcefield shattered and the beam tore through the ship's hull. Adamai screamed and collapsed on the deck. He didn't move.

"Captain!" Amalia called. "We're hit! We're taking water!"

"I'm busy!" the captain called back from the steering wheel. "Fix it!"

She ran over to Admai. "Wake up!" she said. "I know we never really got along, but the captain really needs your help right now." The dragon groaned, but his eyes didn't open. Amalia looked down through the hole. It was only a few feet wide, but water poured through fast. If she could find a way to plug it...but she didn't have many plants that could handle saltwater. But she did have...

She grabbed her doll and jumped overboard. The flow of the water dragged her through the hole, and when it was half way through, she had her doll inflate, clogging it. The doll flailed its oversized limbs, but the water stopped pouring in. Amalia sputtered for breath, reached out, and found the second thing she was looking for.

Seaweed.

WWW

Children have no capacity for violence. That was what Prince Adale's father, the king of New Sufokia, always said. They are free to rant with anger because there's nothing they can do with it. An adult can nurture his anger with cunning and patience, but the anger of a child is as vast and insubstantial as a cloud.

But looking up at the angry child standing over him, he remembered that clouds are full of lightning.

And lightning only needs to strike once.

"Give the order," Adale said. "Cease fire."

WWW

Adamai woke up with the sort of headache you get after giving yourself brain surgery with a sledgehammer. The sky was clear. That was important. He couldn't remember why, but it was good. He yelped when he saw that the entire boat was covered in seaweed.

"Yikes! How long have I been asleep?"

"Huh, you're up," Amalia noted. "All good things come to an end, I suppose."

Adamai ignored her. The throbbing in his head was way more irritating than she was. "We escaped," he realized. "What happened?"

"Oh, you took a nap in the middle of the fight, and I ended up having to repair the ship," Amalia said offhandedly.

"If I hadn't lasted for as long as I did, there wouldn't be enough ship to repair. But I'm glad you finally found your calling as a carpenter."

"You were both admirable," the captain intervened. "If it weren't for you two, my ship would be at the bottom of the ocean. You have my gratitude."

Adamai snorted at the compliment. "Yugo's the one who saved us. All we did was buy him time."

WWW

"You got what you wanted," Adale said stiffly. "Now, kindly get off my island." He stood up slowly. Yugo didn't stop him. Standing up seemed like a terrible reason to kill someone.

Yugo realized that he was out of his depth. He never thought that he'd end up in a hostage situation, and definitely not on the aggressor's side. "Not yet," he said. "If I leave, you might send your ships back after them. I have to give my friends time for you to lose track of them."

The prince rolled his eyes, annoyed at the inconvenience. "Give us some space," he ordered his men. "You're making the boy nervous and twitchy." The soldiers backed away, and Adale turned back to Yugo. "You may stay if you must, but I have work to do. I hope you don't mind if I sit down."

What would a real hostage taker do in this situation? "Um, okay, I guess."

The prince ordered a new cape that wasn't dirty and called for a series of reports to look through, and a cup of tea. "I'd offer you a cup as well," Adale said, "but I imagine you'd decline." Yugo didn't respond. "You know, while I was in that temple of yours, I noticed a painting depicting dragons with a tribe of humans wearing long, colorful hats."

"Those were Eliatropes," Yugo explained. "I told you, dragons are part of my people. The dragon that I'm traveling with, he's my brother."

"Indeed? I'll contemplate the biological mechanics of that another day. Ever since our first meeting I knew you'd be fascinating. Do you remember what you said to me back then?"

"Uh, something about not shooting at Phaeris?" he guessed.

"'I mean you no harm,'" Adale said. He laughed. "I had you surrounded and outnumbered with weapons that you could not possibly have comprehended, and your first words were, 'I mean you no harm.' Most would have apologized and promised to leave, and a bold few would have tried to bluff their way through with empty threats, but you? You tried to _reassure _me."

"So?" Yugo asked, not getting the joke. "What's your point?"

Adale sipped his tea leisurely. Out of all of them, his position was the most precarious, but if that bothered him, he didn't show it. "There is no point, only observation. Although I might speculate that your arrogance will take you to your grave very soon if you're not careful."

"_My_ arrogance?" Yugo repeated. "I'm not the one who went out of his way to attack Phaeris."

"I was prepared for any possibility," Adale replied. "I believe I have proven as much. And if the dragon proved too powerful, I could have retreated, assuming the beast couldn't swim."

"And if he could?"

He shrugged. "It was a slight, though necessary risk." His expression darkened. "That island was necessary to my people beyond question. For too long have my people been trapped at the bottom of the sea. For too long have we lived beyond the touch of sunlight where a single engineering error could drive us to extinction. For too long have we been cut off_ from the world that is our home_." He relaxed suddenly and smiled. "But that's not something I expect you to understand."

Yugo opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. He understood, far more than he wanted to. He wasn't a boy talking to a prince, he was in a meeting between the champions of two nations. And knowing what drove the man, did he really want to fight him? Could he? "We don't have to be enemies," he said finally.

Adale set down his cup and laughed mirthlessly, shaking his head. "Yes, Yugo, we do."

"What? Why? If this is about what happened to your ship—"

"This isn't about what you've done, it's about what you are, and what I am." The setting sun cast long shadows across his face and the air grew chill. "There are dragons older than mankind, and they still think this world is theirs. They lurk in their caves and on obscure islands, hoarding treasure like an Enutrof and care nothing for the human race beyond the rare virgin sacrifice."

"But no matter what power they accumulate in their lives, it dies with them," he continued. "The power of my people lasts forever. What one Sufokian scientist discovers, a thousand scholars can learn. We innovate, we improve, we bury history under the mountain of progress."

"The dragons, your people, are of the past."

"We are the future."

WWW

The captain steered the ship into the shore of Moon Island. It was a miracle that the ship didn't sink or fall apart entirely. They didn't talk much during their trip back. Amalia spent the whole time looking back at Oma Island, where Yugo had surrounded himself with an entire hostile army. Adamai assured her that Yugo was fine, but he kept on looking back all the same as well.

"They don't seem to be following us," the captain noted. "But I'd like to get my ship patched up and away from here as soon as possible."

"I'll get help," Amalia offered. "We have friends on this island."

"I remember you calling the Sufokians your friends," the captain said.

"Our friends here are nothing like those guys," Amalia said. "They're a tribe of Sadida Kannibals who worship a monkey with a magic hammer."

The captain shook her head. "I don't know how you find these people."

"Well, while you're all working on that," Adamai said, "I'm going to go check on Yugo."

"If anything happened to him..." It was Adamai's fault they got in trouble with the Sufokians in the first place.

Adamai snorted. "He's my brother, remember? He's not going to die just because you turn your back on him for five minutes." He jumped off the ship and flew away.

Amalia turned to the captain, who was inspecting the ship. "If I'm not back in half an hour, then I probably got caught up in a spontaneous Sadida monkey party. Don't come looking for me."

As much as she wished she were serious, she doubted she could enjoy herself if her life depended on it. Yugo went and did it again. He left her behind. He'd be back, of course. He might come back half dead and barely able to walk, but he'd come back. And next time they were caught in an impossible situation, he'd be all like, "Hey look! Mortal peril! Last one there's a grouchy gobball!" and he'd race off faster than anyone could keep up with him. And one day he wouldn't come back. And she'd be left behind for good.

A tower shone in the moonlight as it reached up toward the stars. It marked the Kannibal village that she was headed to. It wasn't Yugo's fault that she couldn't keep up. When he got into those little moods of his, no one could. Amalia had her strengths, not in combat, but with people, and on this island, she had connections. And when Yugo came back—he had better—she'd give him a piece of her mind that he wouldn't forget.

WWW

No one saw a white scaraleaf in the night sky, and even if they saw Adamai, they wouldn't be able to hit him. The Sufokian fleet had such bad aim, they couldn't consistently hit anything smaller than a mountain, although it might take something that size to threaten them. No, his own safety was the last thing Adamai was worried about at the moment.

Yugo was fine. Well, alive, at least. His Wakfu hadn't left the world, and he didn't _seem _to be in great pain. Adamai could feel his brother's presence in the back of his mind, guiding him like a compass.

It wasn't his fault, no matter what Amalia had said. If you were being shot at with incredibly large guns, then whose fault was it? Obviously, the people with the incredibly large guns. And so what if he was a bit blunt with the snobby little human? Wisdom, not power, demands respect, and that bunch of humans had proven little beyond their own foolishness. And now they had his brother.

How had that happened? He was the dragon brother, raised by Grougaloragran the Eternal. Grougal protected his brother with extreme prejudice, but when Adamai tried, he was lucky if he only got stuck as a tofu for a day. What was wrong with him? Why was it always Yugo who saved everyone?

He found Yugo standing on the beach surrounded by torches. And armed soldiers. The prince himself sat on a chair next to him with hardly a concern in the world. Odd. Yugo's hands weren't tied, so he wasn't a prisoner, but he wasn't fighting either. He was just standing there.

Adamai turned into his human shape that was more adept at magic and fell to the ground next to his brother, throwing up a shield to block the Stasis rifles.

"Stop!" the prince yelled to his soldiers. "What did I say about shooting at me? I know you think you're good enough to hit something next to me, but you are not. You, you, and—who else fired? Was it you or you? Be honest. It was you?—and you will all report to General Mofette when your shifts are over for discipline."

The three soldiers mumbled something inaudible. "What was that?" the prince asked.

"Yes, your Majesty," they said in unison.

"And Frida? I trust you to come up with something...appropriate."

The General replied from an open Steamflex on the outside of the ring of soldiers. "With pleasure, Prince Adale."

"And nonlethal."

She hesitated and her shoulders slumped a bit. "Yes your Majesty."

Yugo turned to his brother. "Did everyone make it out safely?"

"_Ieko s'naweerveh tub, piesh dab neh s'pish uthz._"

Yugo mouthed the draconic words slowly, translating them. "Well that's good. You can tell me the rest on the way back."

"You are leaving?" Adale asked. "Excellent. As pleasant as this ordeal has been, I cordially invite you to get off my island and never return."

Adamai snorted. "You couldn't pay me to come back here." He turned into a Scaraleaf and Yugo jumped on his back.

"I'm sorry it turned out like this," Yugo said to Adale.

The prince stood up, turned his back on them, and left without a word. The brothers flew.

"Keep an eye on their guns," Admai instructed. "You don't need good aim to be lucky."

"They won't fire," Yugo assured him, but he stayed alert all the same. "Hey, Ad, what's a virgin sacrifice?"

_A what?_ "It's, um, a Sacrier marriage ritual," he said.

"You sure?"

"Pretty sure. Why?"

Yugo shrugged. "No reason. I get the feeling Adale doesn't know much about dragons."

They reached Moon Island, a black crescent silhouette in a sea of reflected stars, and landed by the ship where several masked Sadidas were repairing it. Yugo spotted the Captain, jumped off of Adamai's back, and landed on the ship.

"Captain! You made it! How's the ship?"

"I had a feeling you'd turn up alive, Yugo," the Captain replied. "And the ship's fine. She just got a scratch, nothing more."

Yugo peered down through a hole in the deck that a group of Sadidas were fixing. It was too dark to see, but he suspected that it went all the way down through the hull. "Just a scratch? There's a hole through it!"

"We've been through worse," the Captain replied flippantly. "Amalia was worried that the Sufokians might catch up with us, so these Kannibal people offered to work through the night to get it fixed by morning. Honestly, I think I'd rather face one real sea monster than a fleet of mechanical ones."

"Unlikely," Adamai said. "Grougaloragran would have torn the ship in half on principle, and then decided if he trusted us on his island."

"Grougal only did that once," Yugo protested. "And you weren't even with us back then."

Adamai snorted. "And I bet you think that your ship was the only one to sail there."

"Anyway," Yugo said. "Have you seen Amalia around here?"

"Yeah, she went that way towards that ridiculously tall totem over there with a Kannibal named Focus or something."

"You mean Fucus?"

The Captain shrugged. "Sure."

"Botan Fucus, he's the chief," Yugo said.

"Really? I thought the monkey was the chief."

"No, the monkey's their god. Botan Fucus is their chief."

"Well, that does make a bit more sense," she conceded. "No, wait, it doesn't, but that doesn't matter. You should go see Amalia. She seemed pretty worried about you."

Yugo frowned. _She_ was worried about _him_? Why? He wasn't the one being shot at. "Alright, I'll see you later then." He waved goodbye and ran off into the woods. Adamai followed, and soon they ran into Amalia walking side by side with a local Sadida.

Az darted into the air, crashed into Yugo's face, and fell into his pocket. Yugo laughed. "Did you miss me, buddy?" In response, Az jumped out of his pocket, flew around his head a few times, and dove back in. Yugo turned to the Kannibal. "Are you Botan?" he asked. "It's hard to tell by just your mask."

The masked man nodded. "It is I, Yugo. On behalf of the tribe, I welcome you once more to our island."

"Thank you for offering to fix our ship again," Yugo replied politely.

"A repaired ship is nothing compared to what you and your friends have done for mine. If you had not helped free us from Willow's tyranny, we never would have survived the following scourge."

"Scourge?" Yugo repeated. "What happened?"

"As I was telling Princess Amalia just now, shortly after you left, we were attacked. They were like a swarm of locusts made of steel, draining the life itself from the island. We held them off as best we could, but in the end they left on their own accord."

Adamai nodded. "Those must have been Noxines. We fought their master when he attacked the Tree of LIfe. You don't have to worry about them coming back. He got what he deserved, right, Yugo?"

Yugo shuffled uncomfortably. "I can't say what anyone deserves, but he won't be coming back." Amalia hadn't spoken since they got back. She just stood there like a statue. "Hey, Amalia, are you alright?"

"Chief Fucus?" she said. "Could you go on ahead? I'll catch up later."

"As you wish, Princess Amalia." The chief continued on his path, leaving the three of them alone.

"Amalia? Is something wrong?"

Amalia took a deep, calming breath. Then she screamed. "WHAT IN SADIDA'S NAME WERE YOU THINKING!"

"Uh, what?"

"Is something wrong? _Yes_, something's wrong! What's wrong is that you tried to get yourself killed _again!_ You can't _do_ that, Yugo. You're not invincible."

"But—"

"No buts! Never do that again! Promise me that you will never do that again!"

"I can't!" Yugo blurted out. "I promised your dad already that I'd look after you, and I saw one way to get everyone out of there alive, and I took it."

Amalia stopped dead. "You...promised my dad...that you...would look after...me." She palmed her face and groaned. "Darn it, Yugo, do you know what this means?"

"Uh, that your dad cares?"

"All my life, I've always had a chaperone, a body guard, a baby sitter. I thought that this was my chance to finally leave home without one. It's bad enough to be stuck with a baby sitter when you're nearly fifteen years old. It's even worse when the baby sitter is younger than you.

She turned and walked off into the forest. Yugo didn't follow her. He plopped down on the ground and stared into the empty shadows.

"You know, there's something that I've always liked about that girl," Adamai said lightly. "Oh, wait, never mind. No there isn't." Yugo didn't even crack a smile, so he tried again. "She'll come around. Tomorrow morning, she'll realized the irony of acting like a child for being given a baby sitter, and she'll—"

"It's not that," Yugo said. "She was worried about me. You can't blame someone for caring."

Adamai disagreed, but he didn't' press the point. "So what is it?"

Yugo looked at him with sad, worried eyes. "I convinced Adale to stop firing at you by threatening him. I told him that if any of you died, I'd kill him."

_What's wrong with that?_ Adamai almost asked him that, but he stopped himself just in time. They were different, not just in who they were, but who they wanted to be. "Well congratulations," he said instead. "You told a lie. I didn't think you had it in you."

"But that's just the thing," Yugo protested. "I don't think I was lying."

"You can tell it's a good lie if you manage to fool yourself." Yugo gave him a flat look, so he decided to pull back a bit. "Look, if you don't believe me, we can test this scientifically."

He scanned the woods for suitable prey, jumped into some bushes, and came back with a frantic gerbil. He handed it to Yugo. The creature panicked for a bit, then calmed down in the crook of the boy's arm.

"Now, I want you to kill it," Adamai instructed.

Yugo looked up in shock. "What? Why?"

"For science. Let's pretend, for the sake of the experiment, that this is an evil gerbil. It will kill your Tofu, your friends, and destroy this entire world unless you kill it first."

Yugo looked down at the small creature. "I can't."

"Why not? It will grow old and die in a few years, it has no intelligence compared to even a human, no imagination to dream. If you snapped its neck, who would care?"

"I won't!"

"And yet you think you can kill a man."

"That's different!"

"Yes," Adamai agreed. "By several orders of magnitude. I know you were upset. If something happened, you might have handed out a few bruises, maybe sunk a ship, but you wouldn't have killed anyone. You like humans too much. I doubt you could kill one if your life depended on it." Yugo didn't seem to agree, but he didn't argue either. "Well, get some sleep. We still have a lot to do tomorrow." Adamai turned and walked into the night, leaving his brother to work out thoughts that only he could deal with.

WWW

a/n Yugo's response to all this will come in the next chapter. As usual, you telling me what you think of my story is the most effective way of me knowing what you think of my story. The beginning quote was a toss up between Franklin and two others. The others included Magneto's line from the X-Men, "We are the future, Charles, not them. They no longer matter." Also there was Hamlet's "What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an Angel! In apprehension how like a god!"

I also spent a lot of time editing Suricatessen's story, "Kings and Shadows." If you haven't heard of it, I'd strongly recommend looking it up.


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